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Little Warsaw: Instauratio
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The exhibition “Travelling without Moving” is presently on display in Amsterdam; you are one of its curators. The Little Warsaw group has a work in that show that incorporates another work, created earlier. What is more, that work is now on display in the same building as Instauratio, another Little Warsaw piece. This makes for a very complex situation. How do these two works relate to each other?
They are companion pieces, inasmuch as both are preexisting works that have been relocated. First of all, let me describe Little Warsaw’s contribution to Travelling without Moving [2]. One important bit of background: for the period of its renovation, the Stedelijk Museum has moved temporarily into Amsterdam’s former Main Post Office building, an 11-story modernist building next to the Central Station. The Stedelijk occupies its second, third, and fourth floors. The Time and Again exhibition is on view on the third floor, including Little Warsaw’s Instauratio. At the same time, another significant – though completely different – institution in the Netherlands’ cultural palette, has moved into the basement of the same building, also just temporarily: W139. This is where we showed the group exhibition Travelling without Moving, which includes Little Warsaw’s project Censorship Blvd. Even before this project was created, it was crucial to be aware of how these two institutions would occupy their spaces, that two different works would be appearing in different settings within the same building. This was constantly kept in mind in considering the recontextualization of the Somogyi sculpture. For Censorship Blvd., Kar Ilyich Pelgrom’s 1958 sculpture Vogel (Bird) was borrowed from the Stedelijk’s collection. This work found itself in a completely new context as a result of the building’s simple, vertical dynamic. At such times you need to know a few things about the artist, since during the process of recontextualization, the selection of pieces is at least as important as the manner in which it is displayed. The sculptor in this case was a member of the Cobra Group, and the overtones of his name are no accident: He took the name Karl after Marx, and Ilyich after Lenin. Pelgrom was an exponent of such radical artistic thinking in the 1960’s that he became isolated, even within the Cobra Group itself. In 1966, for example, he was given a professorship at the University of Groningen, only to be kicked out two years later for behavior irreconcilable with the spirit of that institution. This event created a tremendous stir among the students, some of whom then joined him in establishing a new group, Creative Work. They were characterized by a critical stance that saw problems in aesthetics, in the cult of the creative personality, and in the placing of works of art on pedestals. One of their goals was to bring the process of artistic creation as close as possible to daily life. In this sense, it was very fortunate that Little Warsaw took up this sculpture.
On what basis was this choice made?
Because of their similar chronology, for one thing. The Somogyi sculpture dates from 1965; it was crucial to present what the 1960’s meant in art from another angle as well. The critical position inherent in the work of Little Warsaw, and its constant reevaluation of the status of art, are very similar to the views represented by Creative Work . On top of that, there was a special harmony with the mission of W139, and its role within the range of institutions. So it seemed that Vogel was getting its appropriate place and context.
It got more than that…
Little Warsaw’s intervention does not stop there. A physical change happened to the Somogyi sculpture, through its new setting, involving the direct participation of the artist: a micro-port was attached to that small piece, with a cord leading from its base to a cassette recorder that lay on the floor.
How different are these two types of removal – from public space and from a museum setting?
The public space is largely an inherent part of the work created for it. This is even managed by legal formulas. In an urban setting like Hódmezővásárhely, the “strategic” location of a statue is crucial in determining the role it will play in the urban environment. With Vogel, the collection itself provides the context, so its internal dynamics are most significant. The question may arise how a formerly rebellious artist who was once expelled by institutional culture can become part of the canon over time, and his oeuvre reevaluated – a process that “ends” with one of his works ending up in an important collection.
With Instauratio, what kind of encounter do you see taking place within the work (and within the public around it) between varying concepts of art?
It is almost as if the entire tradition of conceptual art is being questioned in the polemic being played out in the press. Of course Instauratio is a work of art, and the intervention that placed it in another context is a significant gesture. The “addition” of content is more than just strictly sculptural. I do not think the autonomy of the Somogyi sculpture suffered from becoming the focal point of a contemporary group’s project – one that examines our thinking about art in relation to the statue.
Budapest, January 14, 2005
Interviewed by Nikolett Erőss
Translation by: Jim Tucker
1 Edit Molnár is a curator, leader of the Gallery of the Young Artists Association (Stúdió Galéria), Budapest
2 W139, Amsterdam, 18. 12. 2004 – 23.01.2005. Curated by Ann Demeester, Edit Molnár, Hajnalka Somogyi