In recent years, this quarter of Budapest’s 9th District has undergone a controversial metamorphosis: the area once characterised by crumbling tenement houses and industrial edifices has become a neighbourhood of redesigned public spaces, uniform blocks of flats with large common courtyards and incessant construction projects – and this is only a snapshot, for the reconstruction of the district is still well under way. Rehabilitation entails a replacement of the population: the tenants of the new flats and offices now come from the middle class. This neighbourhood is a typical example of gentrification in Pest, a phenomenon unique in Hungary. How may an art institution be related to a process that apparently runs its course independent of that institution, which nevertheless has its implicit share, what is more, its impact on the process?
Turbo Garden employs a unique Hungarian phenomenon as a metaphor in analysing the relationship of cultural initiatives and the city: the phenomenon of former ruin pubs and their successors, provisional, limited term clubs and pubs. In the early 2000’s, Budapest witnessed the cropping up of pubs in abandoned, crumbling buildings awaiting demolition or renovation. They were representatives of an urban culture hiding behind the wings of illegality, gaining publicity through informal channels. Harbouring used old furniture left behind and aestheticizing decay in a slightly artificial manner, these pubs refrained from looking neat and tidy, thus heralding a novel experience of urban liberty and community.
And as it generally goes, such creativity soon raises the attention of investors flocking at the prompt of ‘urban rehabilitation’. A classic example is how art contributes to making reconstructed city quarters more attractive, even if not always in ways that locals can comprehend. In this game of elbowing, the places of culture consumption either languish, or adapt to the new conditions and strive to take a pragmatic approach to ease the pain of maladjustment.
Turbo Garden, operating on the terrace in front of Trafó, as a part of the project, is assembled from furniture and design elements borrowed from this summer’s provisional pubs. The intentionally crammed and over-concentrated installation, supplemented by projections and sound samples, refers to the well-known process when the visuality of street art, or objects of junk-romanticism, popular in such pubs, become creators of fashion and catalysts of consumption, ever more frequently appearing as obligatory sceneries. Turbo Garden recycles, turbocharges and delivers as ready-made the image constructing design elements of extant pubs and clubs. In addition to being another twist in the trend, the opening of a new, quasi-pub calls attention to the fact that being active as an art institution or as an artist in the contemporary art scene (and in a multiply affected city quarter), it is impossible to regard a phenomenon we are all participators of, with the eye of the external, unbiased and especially innocent observer.
To complete the interchange of places, the artists relocated the original furniture of Trafó’s terrace into the Gallery, where a projection flashes images of reconstructed or simply forgotten bars, clubs and places of culture around the eternally metamorphosing city.
With the contribution of Kiégő izzók / Tamás Zádor; Sanyi
Partners: Trafó Bár Tangó – Corvinteto – Fecske Terasz – Konzikert – Kuplung – Moszkva Tér Bisztró – Szimpla Kert – Tuz Tate – West-Balkán