'56 (2011), photo on dobond, framed, 92 x 63 cm

The illustrations for the new constitution have elicited both witty and critical responses from eight contemporary artists invited by the online news portal index.hu to create their own versions based on the original state-supplied themes.
Paris-based Hungarian artist Marcell Esterházy came up with a particularly inventive solution to the task of visually representing the 1956 Revolution. His concept involved creating a photographic series of 56 non-identical Hungarian scones or pogacsa, on the grounds that today ‘1956 is handled much like our pogácsa – there is no unified picture, as everyone has their own version.’ His comment is a reminder that contemporary art is much more at home raising questions and complicating our understanding of reality than illustrating a single, authorised interpretation of recent history.

Maja and Reuben Fowkes: Heroes of the Basic Law (translocal.org)

www.translocal.org/writings/heroes.htm

>>>article (in hungarian) index.hu