Éva Boglárka Zellei: Attempts at inheriting
10 October 2023 – 10 November 2023Attempts at Inheriting
A project by Éva Boglárka Zellei
"I am a young Christian woman artist from Central Eastern Europe." Each point in Éva Boglárka Zellei's self-definition deserves to be elaborated on and interpreted, one by one as well as together in all of their possible permutations. In fact, this interpretation is more than just a possibility: beside its stakes for the artist, it is vitally relevant far beyond her personal story.
Zellei's works, photographs, performative actions and installations have been presenting this process of searching for meaning and self-placement for years now. In the present exhibition, titled Attempts at inheriting, these experiments explore the question of cultural heritage, or more precisely, the notion of inheriting in its relation to the present of the individual and of the community, its spiritual, social, community, historical and ethical aspects. In Zellei's practice, the acts of performance and image making appear as possibilities: through them, tradition which has outlived its old context can be reinterpreted to acquire a contemporary meaning.
The centre of the exhibition space is a video titled Cross Climbing No. 1 (2020). Projected onto a canvas hung transversally in near the entrance to the room, we see a performance in which the artist climbs a metal cross standing several meters high in an open space. The climber tries to find places on the cross from where she can peacefully observe the landscape. The viewer cannot not see what the artist can – the act of contemplation and/or its agent is emphasized. In addition to the video, twenty-six photos and a photo book about the project are displayed in the exhibition. Several photos were taken during a performative act, presenting the artist in meditative, reflective / self-reflective situations related to the above questions of self-definition. The photo series is called untitled – out of all the works shown here, the artist gave title to only one image besides the video: the title of that particular photo is Self-portrait with a twentieth-century statue of a girl. Like the video’s, the title of this photo is merely descriptive, tautological to the image – rather than to words, Zellei clearly attributes the potential to convey meaning entirely to the image, to the spectacle composed or selected and recorded, to the action or shape shown. The narrative and the experience unfold in the image and in juxtaposition of the images in the exhibition space. The constellation of images emerging then and there can then acquire a title, valid then and there – this time it is Attempts at Inheriting.
Opening: 10th of October, 6 pm
INDA Project Room
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