{"id":400347,"date":"2006-09-27T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-09-27T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/?p=400347"},"modified":"2006-09-27T22:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-09-27T22:00:00","slug":"a-muvesz-a-helyen-van","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/kritika\/a-muvesz-a-helyen-van\/","title":{"rendered":"The Artist is in his Proper Place"},"content":{"rendered":"<script language=\"JavaScript\" type=\"text\/JavaScript\">\r\n<!--\r\nfunction MM_openBrWindow(theURL,winName,features) { \/\/v2.0\r\n  window.open(theURL,winName,features);\r\n}\r\n\/\/-->\r\n<\/script>\r\n<div class=\"cikk\">\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p>I saw the exhibition twice: after the opening, when the artist started drawing on the walls of the exhibition space at Kunsthalle and after he finished his work. First it was the performance character of the work that made an impression on me, the next time it was the experience of the space filled with \/ inhabited by the artist\u2019s drawings.\r\n  <\/p>\r\n  <p>The walls of the three huge galleries surround the spectator like the pages of a gigantic book whereas the content vectors of the scattered drawings united in a loose composition indicate various directions. They are intellectual drawings of a critical nature inspired with humour and irony, using a single quick stroke (I prefer this designation to the \u201ccartoon quality\u201d as it is often phrased in the Perjovschi bibliographies)<a name=\"1anc\" href=\"#1sym\"><sup><b>1<\/b><\/sup><\/a>with which we share the space and thus are confronted directly and, so to say, from the inside with the social, political and cultural problems of local and international interest touched upon by the artist.<\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p>There is a wide range of conflicts including the latest developments of the Israeli-Lebanon clash (<a href=\"javascript:MM_openBrWindow('\/kritika\/perjovschi_1_1.html','perjo','width=800,height=600')\"><strong><font size=\"1\">&gt;&gt;<\/font><\/strong><\/a>), the world-wide expansion of the United States\r\n    (<a href=\"javascript:MM_openBrWindow('\/kritika\/perjovschi_2_1.html','perjo','width=800,height=600')\"><strong><font size=\"1\">&gt;&gt;<\/font><\/strong><\/a>), the spectacular and unspoken problems of EU integration (<a href=\"javascript:MM_openBrWindow('\/kritika\/perjovschi_3_1.html','perjo','width=800,height=600')\"><strong><font size=\"1\">&gt;&gt;<\/font><\/strong><\/a>) as well as Budapest with respect to this summer, tourism, the arts, and the spreading of the neo-liberal economy (<a href=\"javascript:MM_openBrWindow('\/kritika\/perjovschi_4_1.html','perjo','width=800,height=600')\"><strong><font size=\"1\">&gt;&gt;<\/font><\/strong><\/a>), and the contexts of the exhibitions at Kunsthalle (<a href=\"javascript:MM_openBrWindow('\/kritika\/perjovschi_5_1.html','perjo','width=800,height=600')\"><strong><font size=\"1\">&gt;&gt;<\/font><\/strong><\/a>). <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p>The drawings are not intended to arouse passive (or empathic) identification but being the artist\u2019s personal comments which mostly deal with common interests, urge us to take sides, reflect on them, and argue either with ourselves or one another or the artist which is allowed by the open creative process at the beginning of the exhibition. Perjovschi moralizes but does not even spare himself and this peculiar humourous \/ ironic, self-reflective gesture\r\n    (<a href=\"javascript:MM_openBrWindow('\/kritika\/perjovschi_6_1.html','perjo','width=800,height=600')\"><strong><font size=\"1\">&gt;&gt;<\/font><\/strong><\/a>) helps him not only survive everyday tension but also find the \u201cproper\u201d position in the conflicting situations.<\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p>The relationship between artists and institutions has never been free from tension and it still isn\u2019t, although the spreading of the \u201capplied (institution) criticism\u201d of the late years seems to back up the status quo. The trouble must be seated in its \u201capplied nature\u201d since, from this position, it is difficult to authentically criticize the system with which the artist himself \/ herself is closely linked. <a name=\"2anc\" href=\"#2sym\"><sup><b>2<\/b><\/sup><\/a>\r\n  <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p>However there is no position \u2013 or at least no visible one \u2013 outside the system. Each case requires an individual analysis; it is worth considering how and for what reasons the mechanism of the artwork developed by the artist functions, what factors make up the artist\u2019s position within the criticized system. The Bucharest based artist has often been invited by various European and overseas art institutions the latest years to make a show similar to that of Kunsthalle, Budapest. His exhibitions in 2006 include the City Gallery of Limerick, the \u201cMember\u2019s Room\u201d of London Tate Modern, the cloakrooms of Moderna Museet in Stockholm, the Kunstverein in Stuttgart, the Portikus in Frankfurt, as well as the staircase of La Caixa in Barcelona, and next year he is invited to have a show at MOMA New York. I would like to point out the antecedents and the broader context of this process briefly.<\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p>Dan Perjovschi first projected his visual commentaries into space in 1999, namely on  the floor of the Romanian Pavilion at the Venice Biennial. <a name=\"3anc\" href=\"#3sym\"><sup><b>3<\/b><\/sup><\/a>\r\n  Originally, he wanted to display his small sized note-books in which he made his drawings and recorded his thoughts day by day, responding to the events which took place around him.<\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p>These note-books, small enough to be taken out and scribbled in anywhere \u2013 an act which sometimes serves as self-therapy \u2013 ensured a maximum of freedom for the artist. The idea to transpose the selected drawings of the note-books onto the floor was based on aesthetic and practical considerations: Perjovschi could this way cut free from the Romanian and Eastern European financial and administrative straits. Moreover, the drawings covering the floor and gradually getting blurred behind the spectators\u2019 footsteps resisted the traditional value judgement and the demands of representation of the (show) system. <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p>From this necessity follows the working method of the present projects: the artist works \u201cin situ\u201d and mostly \u201cin progress\u201d accepting the ephemeral nature of his work. After the finisage, the walls are repainted in order to make room for the next exhibition. As with his drawings published in daily and weekly papers, transience is also characteristic to the exhibitions; as the news of today are replaced by the news of tomorrow in the papers so do Perjovschi\u2019s interventions get a meaning within the institutional space. The artist takes sides, comments the events, expresses his opinion but doesn\u2019t want to make his view exclusive and everlasting.<\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p>Drawing is first of all the means for the artist to understand the world and respond to the events which take place around him. The emblem-like conciseness of his drawings involves a complex situation and the reaction to it. The note-books are getting filled with drawings continuously, which make up thirty or forty percent of the interventions transposed onto the walls. The rest results from the current boom of events including the place of the show, the local inquiry conducted by the artist, his conversations, sometimes the commentaries of the visitors, as well as the current issues of world politics.<\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p>The show at Kunsthalle is also an experiment since it is the first time that Perjovschi\u2019s work (including his examination of the spot) commenced at the opening. He took the risk consciously partly because of an urge for renewal, partly because as an outsider who is familiar with the Budapest art scene he could relate in a relaxed way to the institution which often taxes the local artists\u2019 and curators\u2019 powers with its tense atmosphere. It also follows from the experimental character of the show that Perjovschi\u2019s work grows more complex through a new motif, namely that this time he fits the boom factor \u2013 which so far served as a content element of his drawing -interventions and installations \u2013 as a structural element in the work in progress.<\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p>When discussing Perjovschi\u2019s relationship with the institutions and the socio-political system, we must take into consideration the extension of critical attitude on his entire activity. He has been working with the Bucharest based socio-political weekly magazine \u201c22\u201d as a graphic artist and publicist since the beginning of  the 90s, published a great number of critical analyses in Romanian and foreign art journals. Together with his wife Lia, he founded in 1990 the CAA (Contemporary Art Archive, later Contemporary Art Analysis), which is a portable museum documenting contemporary art, an \u201cinstitution\u201d which aims at supporting independent positions and initiatives within the art scene, as well as mediating between local and international contexts.<\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p>Lia and Dan Perjovschi have committed themselves to perform criticism upon the Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest, including its construction, its location in the building of the present Parliament \u2013 previously Casa Poporului built by Ceausescu at the cost of human lives and garbling history \u2013 as well as the mechanisms by which the institute functions.\r\n    <a name=\"4anc\" href=\"#4sym\"><sup><b>4<\/b><\/sup><\/a> The fact that Perjovschi had the legend \u201cRomania\u201d tattooed on his upper arm at Zone International Performance Festival in Timisoara, in 1993 and had it removed in 2003, during the exhibition \u201eIn the Gorges of the Balkan\u201d organized at the Kunsthalle Fridericianum in Kassel is proof that for him, everyday life and art practice are entwined. Having publicly identified himself with the Romania image of the so called \u201ctransition period\u201d for 10 years, the artist liberated himself from it in the course of an exhibition which made a survey of the Balkans. <a name=\"5anc\" href=\"#5sym\"><sup><b>5<\/b><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p>It is beyond question that performing criticism is a way of life for Pejovschi. We can distinguish \u201csoft\u201d and \u201chard\u201d criticism; whereas the drawings, as a genre close to the artist\u2019s personality through which he can most directly express his thoughts, belong to the former category, while the rest of his activities are part of the latter. Apart from mediating an artistic attitude, the drawings give us pleasure and we are delighted at every visual, intellectual bull\u2019s eye hit; to put it with Pejovschi\u2019s words: \u201cfirst we laugh at it and then think about what we have received\u201d. <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p>The more they merge in the social sphere the more minimalist the visual language of his actions and projects become. To understand the whole thing somewhat symbolically, the wall drawings have another dimension as well. The walls covered with drawings are repainted before the next exhibition but the drawings work their way into the spatial structure of the institution as a critical-experimental layer.<\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p>We could go on analyzing Perjovschi\u2019s position within the interaction of art, institutions, and social space but I think that we have reached the point where it is clear, apart from what we think, that the artist does his best as he has already found his proper place and knows how to proceed so as not to lose his way in the labyrinths of the system.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n<hr noshade>\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p><a name=\"1sym\" href=\"#1anc\"><b>1<\/b><\/a> See one of the latest interviews with Perjovschi, Kritikus vagyok \u2013 klinikai eset, 2006-08-11. An Interview with Graphic Artist Dan Perjovschi, Editor and Illustrator to Weekly Magazine \u201c22\u201d. Kr\u00f3nika online: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kronika.ro\/nd.php?name=Sh&#038;what=4846\" target=\"_blank\">www.kronika.ro\/nd.php?name=Sh&amp;what=4846<\/a><\/p>\r\n  <p align=\"left\"><a name=\"2sym\" href=\"#2anc\"><b>2<\/b><\/a> In our case, not only the artist but the author too, as an employed curator of Kunsthalle and curator of the Romanian Pavilion at the Venice Biennial in 1999. Thus my positive attitude towards the exhibition is easy to understand. However, by discussing the relationship of the artist and the (institutional) system, I put my prepossession \/ openness to the test.<\/p>\r\n  <p><a name=\"3sym\" href=\"#3anc\"><b>3<\/b><\/a> Perjovschi made his first work-in-progress in 1996, at Franklin Furnace in New York (\u201cAnthroprogramming\u201d) which was erased by the spectators themselves. This work, which was concerned with the relationship of censorship and self-censorship, did not include the present commentary drawings. For more information, see Michael Wilson, Graphic Equilizer, Artforum, May 2006, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.perjovschi.ro\/pages\/review2.html\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.perjovschi.ro\/pages\/review2.html<\/a><\/p>\r\n  <p><a name=\"4sym\" href=\"#4anc\"><b>4<\/b><\/a> L. Lia Perjovschi, Dan Perjovschi:\r\n    Detective Draft, 2005, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.perjovschi.ro\/pages\/projects.html\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.perjovschi.ro\/pages\/projects.html<\/a><\/p>\r\n  <p><a name=\"5sym\" href=\"#5anc\"><b>5<\/b><\/a> L. Kristine Stiles, &#8222;Remembrance,\r\n    Resistance, Reconstruction, the Social Value of Lia &amp; Dan Perjovschi&#8217;s\r\n    Art&#8221;, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.perjovschi.ro\/pages\/art6.html\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.perjovschi.ro\/pages\/art6.html<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Translated by Agnes Ivacs<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; I saw the exhibition twice: after the opening, when the artist started drawing on the walls of the exhibition space at Kunsthalle and after he finished his work. First it was the performance character of the work that made an impression on me, the next time it was the experience of the space filled [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":630343,"parent":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-400347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kritika"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}