Polish Modern Art Foundation

Natonal Landscapes / Nemzeti Tájképek

Hubert Czerepok in Trafó gallery

“The exhibition of Hubert Czerepok deals with a very actual and very acutely precise topic: the intellectual and spiritual birth of radical and extremist politics. The exhibition deals with political views which are possessed by symptoms of obsession which can amplify into insanity and the also aims to identify the thin red line which divides rational thinking from irrational action. Czerepok is interested in the nature of that state of mind, which is aggressively expanding in political publicity and discourse and which is more and more loudly creating propaganda for previously intolerable populist, ethnocentric and xenophobic views.

Czerepok is examining the micro logics of the media, and the whole creative mind-industry run by obsessed which uses manipulative consumer mechanisms and information technology to supply masses with ideological, political, religious conspiracy theories, and misbeliefs which can escalate into fanaticism and the self-referential system of symbols of these constructions. (…)

Czerepok was among the first artists, who reflected on the political reactions to the masses of migrants, who arrived to Europe last summer. His neon-installation entitled „The Fence” takes a sharp critical position towards the ruthless reaction of Hungarian politics. The work’s uniquely strong visuality reflects on the absurdity and fragility of the national and ethnic nature of the defensive reaction, which did manifest in the barbed wire fence built on the Serbian-Hungarian border.”

Barnabás Bencsik, for full text click here.

 

“(…) In the meantime, old symbols of glory and national pride are restored. In Poland they come from the period of World War II. After its comeback of the resistance symbol of the kotwica (anchor) has been appearing on the walls, clothes, tattoos and even on baseball bats, a weapon of choice for street fights. The far right parades with the pre-war Little Swords of [Boleslaus] the Brave.

In Hungary symbols from the half-mythical period of proto-Hungarians dominate. They include the the old Hungarian script rovas, the mythical turul birds or archers on a horseback as well as the flag of Árpád stripes turned earlier into a fascist symbol by the Arrow Cross movement.

These motives have appeared on the newly created genre of clothing patriotic bringing a huge success to this sector of the market. Such clothing has become especially popular among the politically engaged football fans, who connect fanatical devotion to their club with the ideology of the extreme right. (…)

Trends experienced by Poland and Hungary, both at the level of governments and their cultural background, are similar. Traditional Polish-Hungarian friendship has been recently leaning toward nationalism. The national revival has the face of a football fan wearing a patriotic hoodie and brandishing a baseball bat decorated with the kotwica”.

Jerzy Celichowski, for full text click here

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21.10.2016 – 4.12.2016

TRAFÓ HOUSE OF CONTEMPORARY ARTS
1094 Budapest, Liliom u. 41.

curators:
Sarmen Beglarian
Bencsik Barnabás
Sylwia Szymaniak

organizers:
Trafó House of Contemporary Arts
Polish Modern Art Foundation
Exhibition Bureau