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CREDITS
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Director/Founder
Dorcas Gelabert
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Contributing writers
Phillip Cary
Constantine Cavarnos
Edna Diolata
Doris Youdelman
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Contributing editor
Doris Youdelman
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Contributing photographer
Ernest Cuni
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The new work of Hungarian-born artist, Cseke Zsusanna, is a departure from the work she been creating for over a decade. Known in European venues primarily for her abstract painting, her new body of work takes a decidedly representational, historical, activist, if still poetic turn. The text that follows has been composed from a series of exchanges between the artist and Art and Ideas, via telephone and e-mail, which took place over roughly four months. This conversation is published on the eve of the artist’s first public exhibition of her new body of work. The exhibition will take place in her native Hungary this summer. A selection of her new work is scheduled to be exhibited in Budapest this July, to be followed by exhibitions in France and the U.S. later this year.
Conversation
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Dorcas Gelabert – For the benefit of the reader who is unfamiliar with your work, I'd like to start more or less at the beginning of your professional career as an artist. Back in the late 80's your work started to gain attention through a number of exhibitions in Europe at some reputable places— museums and galleries. How did that happen?
Cseke Zsuzsanna- It started in 1988. I was invited to do my Master's here, in America, because of a one-person show of etchings I had in Budapest. I began to exhibit in Europe while staying in America. In my country I didn't have any information about international competitions. That was closed, insider information. There was no web at the time.
DG – Did you come straight to New York for the Master's?
CsZs - I went to Amherst first. I had won an international scholarship from the University of Massachusetts. I left before I finished the Master's there.
DG - Why did you leave UMass and the scholarship?
CsZs - I was invited there free of charge for only one semester. I was going to return to Hungary, but I met a Hungarian philosophy professor who applied for a Soros Foundation grant for me. I also met a Hungarian anthropology teacher who took me to New York to meet his girl friend—a Hungarian-American photographer. She sent me to many art schools to look around. I ended up with another scholarship and a quick student visa from the Art Students League.
DG - Besides looking at schools and getting the scholarship at the Art Students League, what else did you do in New York?
CsZs - I was trying everything. I continued my Master's at Hunter College, I took classes at Parsons and Pratt…and I exhibited.
In 1992 I left to Italy for three months. I had such success with my work there that I stayed for two years. In 1994 I showed and stayed all over in Europe—Paris, Stuttgart, London, Budapest. I had a German sponsor who had helped me to do this. She was a theology and philosophy professor. I met her in Italy.
In Germany, people have kept the old European tradition of buying original art instead of copy alive. If they cannot afford the original oil painting, they buy an original print or watercolor. They know the difference between original and copy in value. They know that culture is the real currency of a country, not gold. They recognize the collective value of it, and by buying artwork they not only enrich themselves, but they also support artists—so the artist can be independent and free to look at them (society) from a distance and create a mirror for them, and a mark about them in history... In Holland, at that time, every fine artist who had a diploma got about $800 a month from the government. It was enough for basic expenses, so they didn't have to commit themselves to something else and work at night, or give up art.
I returned to New York in 1995. I've been here since then.
DG - Let me stick for a minute with your first time around in New York, back in the 80s. What impression did you have of the New York art world at the time?
CsZs - At that time it was the capital of the art world. I was amazed by the variety of artists. The whole world was represented. It was the closest I had ever gotten, up to then, to European and Japanese artists. I exhibited and worked together with Japanese artists many times. Americans were flexible, open and accepting—they were nice. They were not competitive like in my country. Everyone had space here. I was grateful but surprised. I didn't understand why they didn't use the traditional and mastered system of art and art education of 2500 years (if we begin with the Greeks). Instead, they were using something more like self-teaching with guidance...
DG - Well, ultimately we can thank the project of Modernity (breaking with the past) for that. But this is a problem that needs to be addressed by itself. What sort of reception did your work find in New York at the time?
CsZs - I was much more appreciated here than in my country. Everyone complimented me. I was accepted. But it was a fragile situation. It didn't bring any financial security; and by leaving to Europe and returning years later, I cut off the possibility of moving forward step by step.
DG - Did you expect that sort of appreciation at the time?
CsZs - After I returned, yes. The economy was down in Europe. Italians suffered unemployment. In Paris, I got an offer to design a mural on the exterior wall of a building in La Defense, based on my abstract paintings; but they didn't pay up-front until I would show them plans. It was just a time when I ran out of money. I had to leave.
I thought I had done enough in Europe at that point to become an established artist. My friends said, "go where the money is—you've been there." But here the galleries found my work too colorful...
DG - So the second time in New York, after being away for a couple of years, the art scene was beginning to change and things were harder?
CsZs - It's more complicated than that. Here, in New York, artists accept the fact that they have to do their art in their free time. All the Europeans I knew here worked for a while to save up money and then stopped working to do art work for a few months. Then, they would get back to work. It's either one or the other, but you cannot do both at the same time.
DG - What did you concentrate on during these years of study and practice at the various schools in New York?
CsZs - At the Art Students League I took etching. The etching department had a small room without good ventilation for the acids. I changed to litho, which was new for me. It took me two years to discover that it was not my thing. Then, at Parsons I took silkscreen with Donna Moran. I really enjoyed it because I didn't know anything about silkscreen. I was able to connect. It was the first time I felt a little Americanized. Donna suggested that I participate in the Cadaques International Miniprint Biennial in Spain, in which she participated every year and won first prize several times.
DG - The work that you had toured Europe with from 1992 to 1995 and the work you did later, from the time you returned to New York in 1995 to 2005 (when you stared this new body of work), was abstract painting. Yet the work that you were doing before all that was representational. How did you get into abstraction? You mentioned before that you had a very colorful palette; did abstraction allow you to explore formal aspects of painting like color?
CsZs - While I was at the League I also began to take painting with Richard Pousette-Dart and Leo Manso. They were the best in that school. Somehow I became abstract in a few weeks. I had success with those works in Europe.
I have never thought about 'exploring' color. To me color is just a tool to say something. It is like grammar for poetry, or the alphabet. I experimented with layers, mixing colors, using transparent and permanent colors next to and on top of one another, with iridescent colors, etc. It challenged my skills and made them ready for when I needed to express something consciously or unconsciously.
DG - Given the freedom to express yourself and the successes that you started to have in Europe with your abstract work in the decade of the 90s, why did you break with abstraction in this new body of work?
CsZs - In my last body of abstract work I was very involved with Eastern philosophy. For a while, I painted white paintings. I hardly used other colors. The paintings were very delicate. All the colors of the rainbow—the spectral colors—are created from white light, which is the united totality of all the individual colors. White light symbolizes the state of unity. The colors have their meaning and are harmoniously connected to one another. If one color is missing or too is strong in the mixture, the result will no longer be white. I tried to play with this idea on canvas using translucent colors. I was trying to see the white through the colors. I tried to go beyond, to capture something of the unseen and unknown with my inner guidance, my intuition.
Next, I tried to express that our modern civilization, through the miracles of technology, causes us to live in a hectic, clockwork world where mechanized thinking has taken man away from his real nature. I created contrast. I used transparent materials, such as plexi glass, vellum, transparent and iridescent colors, to make the paintings dream-like. I put glass beads in the paint sometimes to bring the optical light into the painting directly. I was the mirror. My paintings were my reflection.
It was impossible to photograph that work well enough. It gave me a lot of problems. After a while I didn't have new ideas. I needed a change. I was waiting. I felt that I had gone in a wrong direction. I had followed something that doesn't go anywhere. I didn't see the trap. It was a nice period. I expressed myself the best way I could, but it wasn't enough. I didn't take responsibility. Artists shouldn't do artwork for themselves or their colleagues, or for the critics.
DG - Were there any other reasons or circumstances, besides the 'dead end' or 'trap' that abstraction became for you, that pushed you in the direction of your current work?
CsZs - I read a story in an Art Forum magazine about an experiment presented in the TV program 20/20. They had people vote online as to what seemed to be better or more valuable art. The choices were Pollock and some flea market stuff. The identities of the works weren't shown. The unknown flea market painting purchased for five dollars got the most votes. People couldn’t tell the difference.
They also showed modern art works by professional artists and one done by a four year-old. The viewers didn't know that. Among them were experts in modern art, artists and critics. The experts seemed to really like the one by the four year-old. Then, they were informed that it was done by the four year-old. The expert was there trying to defend his words. He came up with the obvious, "well then, this four year-old has talent."
I think it's true that people are lost in abstract art, and that most of them do not like it. Artists should work for the people—but not on a banal level. The great masters uplifted people. They civilized them through art.
Lately I also began to feel that Europe took over again, and that the center of art now is Berlin. I stopped feeling art in the air here in New York. The changes in the economy and in the culture here pushed me back to my roots. New York is not the same as before.
DG - You mean, when you first came?
CsZs - Yes. I lost interest in the direction that art is going here. I was far from my culture, but I realized that it was all in me. Not long ago, in Hungary, my father died. He left me a small booklet from his childhood. I didn't think much of it at first. Then, I just began to play with it...
DG - What is in the booklet?
CsZs - My father was born in 1926, this book was published in 1930, when he was a child. It was a book for children on many topics, and on history. The title is Travel in Transylvania. There were no pictures in it, only the blank places where the pictures go. He had to order them one by one. There was some task to accomplish for each picture. As you see, there are about 40 pictures in it. He collected and pasted each one.
My father was a very true Hungarian. He had a very hard life, but lived it keeping his head up always. He could have been anything he wanted. He was the best student everywhere. I had his grade books. There is nothing less than 'excellent'. But he stopped after vocational high school. He loved the land. His parents had a lot of land and forests. They used to hire seasonal workers. Then, the land was taken away from them. It broke his soul. We got back most of our lands a few years before he died, but it was too late. I was not there to take over. I inherited my mother's artistic talent. She won an illustration competition of a newspaper when she was a young girl; but couldn't go to art school in those difficult times...
I grew up in a house that was like a museum, full of the most beautiful folk art—painted furniture, embroidery, my grandmother's clothes, and ceramics—but slowly everything disappeared. The people who made this kind of art made it valuable not only for its look and craftsmanship; but because their arts actively took part in carrying and recreating their culture, like a drop of water in the sea. This folk art influenced the art of the aristocracy, the nobles, and the middle class, and connected them to one another. Every single piece was unique and collective at the same time on many levels—and it was always Hungarian. Children wanted to be involved already at the age of four and five. By the time girls got married, they were masters of these techniques. They sewed their dreams, hearts and souls into these pieces. After 1945, their identity and pride was taken away from them. They were humiliated. Today, instead of their crafts, we have cheap manufacture and we buy labels. I’m trying to influence people, as much as I can, to learn and practice again the old tradition and to make it part of their everyday lives again—not just to keep a few old pieces in collections
DG - The loss of craftsmanship, along with its value and beauty, is almost a universal phenomenon in practically all industries of modern society. Only the specific, circumstantial causes for such a loss vary from place to place.
You were talking about your father's booklet?...
CsZs - Yes. Going back to the story, it seems that these boys really took this trip, and that the story was written by one of them. The book doesn't show any other writer, only a professor who looked over the text.
DG - What is the story about?
CsZs - The story is about four high school students who lived in the same building in Budapest. One from upper Hungary, Pozsony, the city where most of our kings was crowned. The place is now called Bratislava, and it is the capital of the created country of Slovakia. The second student was from Transylvania. The third one was from Szabadka, lower Hungary, which was given to the Serbs in 1918. The fourth student was from Budapest. Their families had come to Hungary as refugees. Each of the students wanted to go back home. Finally, they threw a coin to decide where to go first.
Each boy had a task. One was the treasurer, the second one was the diary writer, the third one the illustrator and the last one was the guide. The guide was the refugee from Transylvania. He prepared for months. His parents helped him and made him promise to bring a flower from his grandparents’ grave. But when they got to Transylvania, they got lost everywhere— they couldn’t follow the notes sometimes. They saw changes in the street names, the destruction, the neglect of Hungarian monuments like statues and castles, and they saw how everything was turned around to fake history. They even stole our national heroes. They created a history in which Historical Hungary didn’t exist at all. They saw how Hungarians were terrorized and treated in these towns, despite the fact that everyone spoke Hungarian everywhere. They saw how, at first, only the officials were Rumanians.
(Later, Rumanians made big changes. They brought Rumanians into Transylvania in huge numbers, and moved Hungarians to Bucharest, isolated them, and took their land in Transylvania away. It became worse and worse. The Rumanians also forced them to call themselves Rumanians, so they could claim that Hungarians were in a minority and couldn't claim their territory back.)
I learned a lot from this book...
DG - Besides these things, what else have you learned in the process of making this body of work?
CsZs - I learned that one of the gates of historical Hungary (the Carpathian Valley surrounded by high mountains) was at Vorostorony. It was a natural border. Huge mountains divided us from Rumania—a part of the Balkans called Olahland before. There was a river, too, the Olt. In 1916 this was the place the Olahs broke in for the first time. But the Hungarian army pushed them back in the same year.
A film came out a few years ago about Trianon, when our country was cut up in six parts. Parts were given away to other countries around us, and two parts to create new countries, one called Yugoslavia and one Slovakia (Checkoslovakia at that time). We got most of our territories back in 1940, but we lost the second World War. The Russians invaded us. The Russians insisted in reestablishing the Trianon borders—and it happened, tragically. Their intention was to create a Pan-Slavic (united Slavic) Empire. Except Austria, every country around us is Slavic, plus Poland in the north and Bulgaria in the Balkan. (Rumania, which is also Slavic, consistently tries to come up with different versions of their origin in order to claim the right to occupy and keep Transylvania since the 1800s: first the daco theory, later they switched to the Roman. Both of them are fabricated). Transylvania Hungarians invited the film Trianon. They organized to show it in a center or club. The Rumanian police came and arrested and put in jail most people. In Rumania this film has been banned.
DG - Death, both as an idea and as a painful reality, seems to have had a lot to do with the birth of your new work. This new work has a certain sense of urgency and precariousness behind its nostalgic beauty. I know that for you it comes from the thought that something of great value, for you and your native country is at risk of being lost forever.
I want to turn now to the new work itself. Who are the people that appear in your images? How are they significant to the work?
CsZs - They are all Hungarians, despite the countries where they find themselves today. We all belong to the same nation.
DG - In your images there is always a title or name in Hungarian to indicate a town or village; and there are people in all kinds of traditional costumes, often performing what we would read as a traditional or 'folk' dance. Sometimes there are soldiers on horses in parade formation, wearing the military dress of another period. There are ubiquitous flowers and bits of folk art such as embroidery with exquisite patterns and color combinations. For those viewers who do not speak Hungarian and who have little or no idea about the history of the culture and the region, a good part of your intended message and meaning will escape them—even as they appreciate their visual beauty.
It seems to me that this work is really more of a private dialogue between you, your fellow Hungarians, and those peoples in the region that have directly affected the fate of your native country and culture. It also seems to me that in a significant way—if not specifically articulated—the work is also a conversation or an attempt to connect with your father, through the continuation of the little book and the continuation of the spirit in which the book was made by its 'authors'.
How are you attempting to speak to these various peoples through these images, and what are you trying to convey?
1. Untitled
digital composit
[Image, courtesy of the artist]
CsZs - I wanted to show all the people in my country who voted against or who didn't vote in 2005 for the equal citizenship of Hungarians living in the territory of historical Hungary, what they threw away. So, I brought together and united us in my own way.
2. Untitled (Világos Vára)
digital componsit
[Image, courtesy of the artist]
It was important that every picture had the original name of the town or castle that was built by Hungarians, in Hungarian—even if that place is now called something else in another language. A Hungarian knows which costume belongs to which region. I misplaced them. I sent them all to visit Transylvania. I had them all bring love and care to Transylvania. I used images of Hungarians from the country now called Slovakia. Their life is similar to the life of Transylvanians.
3. Untitled (Marosvásárhely Fötere)
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[Image, courtesy of the artist]
4. Untitled
digital componsit
[Image, courtesy of the artist]
I also used images from the south, now called Serbia, Croatia, Ukraine (east) and Austria (west). In Serbia today they openly beat up Hungarians if they speak their language. It happens in Transylvania too.
Szelmenc (called Solontsi in Ukrainian and Velke Slemence in Slovak) is located near where the Ukrainian, Slovakian and Hungarian borders meet. After WWII, the Soviets took this part along with half of the village for themselves. The other half was given to Czechoslovakia. With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the Soviet part became part of Ukraine. The Soviets constructed the border at the end of World War II. This was typical of the inner Iron Curtain of the Communist block. The border cut the villages into half and today one part of Szelmenc belongs to Ukraine and the other part to Slovakia. The border not only divides buildings and streets, it also separates people.
According to an old Hungarian source from 1363, the Sztáray Codex, the settlement received its name from an ancient landholding family called Szelmenczy. Written documentation of Nagyszelmenc and Kisszelmenc exists since the 14th century, and even today it is obvious to the naked eye that the village belongs together organically, lives together, gaining in strength or dwindling as one. Kárpátalja—the four or five Hungarian counties which were a part of the territory—was an integral part of Hungary until 1919. With the Peace Treaty at the end of World War I, it was given to Czechoslovakia. In 1938, a large portion was returned to Hungary. This was the result of the First Vienna Award. A smaller part was re-occupied by the Hungarian Army in 1939. Between 1938 and 1944, Szelmenc also belonged to Hungary. In 1945, the Soviet Red Army occupied the area. It tried to extend it's border as far west as possible. Unfortunately for the families of Szelmenc, Stalin made that border through the middle of main street. To prevent people from seeing each other, the Soviets built a 20-foot high wood plank fence through the city, like a little "Berlin Wall." Yelling across to family was a criminal offense. Since February 2006, the wood planks are no longer there. Families can now yell across the border to their loved ones; but the border is still there.
Rumanian websites currently show Hungarian folk art as if it were their own ancient cultural treasures. Museums in Prague are full of Hungarian craft, folk art, lace, etc. They claim that these are the treasures of their Pan-Slavic culture, but they were robbed from Hungarian castles in upper Hungary...
DG - In life it often happens that only when we lose or when we are separated from something, we can come to a deeper understanding and appreciation of it.
The remote past and more recent history of your country seems to be filled with pain of loss, and here you are with all these pieces of images from the past and the present, trying to stitch together this new work. You said before that you had sent all of these Hungarians to Transylvania. Why Transylvania? What is the significance of this place?
CsZs - First of all, this was the greatest territory given to another country with over two million Hungarian people living on it. Second, there is our history. Matthias (1458-1490) was a great figure in the history of medieval Hungary. He was born in Kolozsvar,Transylvania. He lead several military expeditions and fought many battles to secure his power and to make sure that Hungary had a centralized monarchy. As a Renaissance king, he generously supported the arts and the sciences. There are a few items that still remain from that period—a beautiful red marble fountain, his wife Beatrix’s famous oval marble relief, other things from his palace at Visegrad and books from his world-famous Corvina library. Many items still survive today, because they were and still are other countries like France and Vatical City. They are extremely valuable today.
The first printing house was founded in Buda during Matthias’ reign. In 1473, the first book printed in Hungary, the Chronica Hungarorum (Chronicle of the Hungarians), was printed in that house. It was in Latin. Today this book is known as the Buda Chronicles. It tells the history of the Magyar people from their origins up to the time the book was written.
After losing the critical battle of Mohács in 1526, Hungary fell to the Turks. The turks invaded central Hungary, and stayed for 150 years. In the occupied land the population decreased to 1,600,000. The beautiful Hungarian Renaissance disappeared. Buda was destroyed. The northern territory was occupied by Austria. Transylvania was the only territory that wasn't occupied. It remained free. The Royal court moved to Gyulafehervar. Transylvania carried the continuos existence of our country during that period as “Hungary.”
Recently there was a flood in Transylvania, in Szekelyland. This place is almost purely Hungarian still. Many Hungarians were victims of that flood. Many died. Many were left orphaned. Nobody talked much about it in the media or internationally like they do about other victims of disasters. They got minimal regional help.
In Transylvania, just 160 km from today’s border, there were burned out , windowless, run down panel homes where young children lived as beggars—hungry and neglected. In 1992, in the streets of Deva, hungry and dirty, aimlessly wondering orphans were holding out their begging hands. Someone responded with open arms.
Bojte Csaba, a Hungarian Franciscan monk and the orphan children broke down the locks of the abandoned monastery of Deva. Step by step they created a home from the ruins of that old building. Little by little, according to the need, the dilapidated panel homes became family homes and the monastery became a school for the orphans. The number of students grew rapidly. The dreams and plans kept growing beyond all imagination, and slowly they became a reality. Deva, and the example of Brother Csaba became a symbol of brotherly love and charity. Hungarians from all around the world support him. This is how he goes day by day.
5. Untitled 4. Untitled (Déva Vára)
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[Image, courtesy of the artist]
Also, we have a spiritual leader and guide there, Bishop Tokes Laszlo, who actually liberated Rumania from the Caucescu regime with his speeches. He began a revolution there. Still, the Rumanians tried to kill him several time. They killed his son.
There is a sacred place in Transylvania, in Csiksomlyo. Every year in June, for over 500 years (since 1442), Hungarians from all over the world go there for the Csiksomlyoi Passion and fair. It was banned for several years between the 70s and the 90s. After we lost the citizenship law, over half a million people went there. This year also. Hungarians who I talked to said they were touched for the rest of their lives. They were crying. Actions like this show the real soul and will of our people, not the manipulated politics. It was the same with the flood. Money came from everywhere. People from Hungary, who were themselves in need, sent little amounts to show that they cared.
Szekelyland applied for autonomy at the EU. It was put to a vote. On March 15, 2006, our national holiday, Szekelys were celebrating in the streets. They were surrounded by Rumanian tanks. The Rumanians said to the media that they were practicing; but everybody knew what it was about.
DG - On another occasion you had pointed out to me the situation of the Csango people, as an example of the plight of traditional Hungarian culture.
CsZs - Yes. Many of my images contain Csango people.
6. Untitled (Csangos-2)
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[Images, courtesy of the artist]
There was an article in National Geographic recently about the Csangos. It explained their situation. The Rumanians claim them as part of their cultural heritage. They say that the Csangos were forced to speak Hungarian and to convert to Catholicism. For this reason, the Rumanians say, they should be kept away from any Hungarian cultural influence. The Rumanians keep them living in 15th and 16th century conditions, because they refuse to call themselves Rumanian. There are two international Hungarian foundations now to help them. One asks you to adopt a Csango godchild. If you pay $600, they can put a Csango child into a boarding school in Szekelyland. The other is called the Babba Maria Foundation.
Babba means beautiful in ancient Hungarian. Babba Maria is their protector. She is the Queen Goddess dressed in sun. (In this image of Babba Maria the ancient light religion merges with Christianity.) The foundation calls for buying a brick. Each brick goes to build a Hungarian school for the Csango children in Rekecsiny, Csangoland. So, the dream of thousands of people to have a place where their children may learn in the Hungarian language comes true. The truth about the Csangos is that they are the last remaining ancient Hungarians who have kept our oldest culture and language alive. Today they are a small group of people, living in poverty and misery. Since the Hungarian census of 200 years ago, when the number of Csangos was 430,000 their numbers have dropped to 43,000. They are in danger.
7. Untitled (Babba Maria)
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[Image, courtesy of the artist]
DG - I want to turn now to the technical aspects of this new work. You said that you used the computer because you didn't have time or a proper studio, and you had to be practical. Technically, how do you create these pieces?
CsZs - A computer is a device for manipulating data. A visual artwork is something that has a particular look. We could say the same thing about photography. As a tool for making art it is fine, but most of us know that the use of this 'tool' by photographers without mastery of drawing is a wasting time. Those artists wishing to go beyond simplistic visual illustration should understand that artistic growth is not automatic or the result of producing images. A 'digital artist' also has to keep in mind what the actual medium is. A printed image and an image on a screen look quite a bit different.
I don't think of these works as art pieces.
DG - How do you see them?
CsZs - The main purpose for me was to collect data and to save elements of the culture so they don't get lost. I collected most of the pictures from the internet. Many of them are not up any more. They weren't meant to be art pieces. They were family photos made for an occasion or celebrations like weddings or religious feasts such as the Csiksomlyoi Passion. Artists who are devoted to photographing our culture made some of them — I scanned these from books mostly. Some of them are from local websites introducing their culture, and others are from travel websites.
I also collected images from museum websites and from dance companies’ web sites. Dancers and musicians went to Transylvania villages often collect songs, music, dance steps and movements from old people who carry the culture of their fathers. Bartok did. Liszt did. Photographers too. In the case of textiles, ceramics and embroidery, photography shows the actual piece executed, not just the design, as a painting or drawing does. People might look at photos, but I wanted to put them together in a way that brings attention and makes you look at the picture a little longer.
DG - One of the things that the computer brings to the creation of texts and images is the possibility of creating practically infinite versions of one same work. How do you know when you have finished a piece?
CsZs - I worked on these four or five at a time. I used some of the basic pictures (those from the booklet) twice or three times to create totally different scenes with different people and different backgrounds. I have a few where I didn't use the material of the booklet at all. I used other photos that fit into the project.
Although later I would go back and make changes in some. I always felt which one was finished. If I went back to it a week or two months later, I still wouldn't change anything.
DG - Some may point out the irony implicit in work that is done with ultra modern tools, techniques and even principles, for the purpose of salvaging tradition. Do you see any discrepancy in this?
CsZs - As I said before, they weren't necessarily meant to be art pieces. At first I didn't even want to use my name in the project, to suggest that it is collective work. There are many people in this project—the ones who made the photos, the ones who made the dresses, the ones who made the textiles, etc. Our culture is collective, like white light, or like our religion before Christianity. Our religion was the light religion, which goes back 6000 years. It is present in our folk art, for instance, through the symbol of the flower. In Hungarian flower, world, and light are almost the same words: virag, vilag and vilagossag. Before I decided to use a prayer to present this work, I was going to write my ars poetica in Hungarian runic writing; but I don’t know it well enough yet. I am trying to learn it.
I asked for help through the internet, but it didn’t work out. I used a photo of a wooden ceiling coffer that has runic writing which is in an ancient church in a Hungarian village called Enlaka, in Transylvania. The church is Gothic. In 1661 it was damaged when the Tatars broke in. The collapsed arch was replaced with a Renaissance coffer ceiling. In the coffer it is written, "One is God," in runic. Our original light religion was already a one-god-believing religion. The artist used runic writing because at that time many Szekelys were unable to read latin. Maybe they did not want to, since they had their own writing system.
I will place a copy of this ceiling wooden coffer with the runic text above the prayer that introduces this work at the exhibition, as a reminder of our original religion.
DG - With this work, technically speaking, you have returned to some form of printmaking—let's call it 'digital printmaking.' Do you think that you will now continue along the route of printmaking in which you had started earlier on in your career, or will you return to painting?
CsZs - I believe printmaking is a much higher art technique than computer art. It is refined, sophisticated and it has the human touch—the direct relation with the material. If I would give you the materials I used for this project, the photos, and asked you to recreate my pictures with your computer, you could do it easily. People couldn’t tell which one is mine. This is why it is not really equal with a fine art technique. I would call it probably something like digital photo montage as technique (or, just simply computer art).
I will work on this project longer. I have some new material. Maybe I will build a website. Maybe I will present it in some other way to the public. Maybe I'll manipulate the images in a different way, or maybe I won't manipulate them at all. I'm not sure yet. But I am sure that whatever I will do with this work, it will be to help these Hungarians that the international community has not paid much attention to or helped.
I hope I can travel more and do my own photography. I also will go back to painting, but this time to realistic painting.
Many people claim that 20th century culture cannot be compared to the 19th or 18th century culture. It was much higher then. From this point of view, going back in time and continuing where we left off in the values of the past is something to think about. Until we can do that, we save what we can.
DG - I want to conclude this conversation with a thought and a last question.
It seems to me that as much as this work is an effort to salvage tradition, it is also an effort to redeem art and artist alike. Over the course of the 20th century both art and artist have often slipped on the (now cliché) promises of fame and money. More important, though, they have also found themselves mesmerized by the pyrotechnics of that rather pernicious practice of ‘critical deconstruction' that passes for profundity—what might be daubed, post/neo-enlightenment. That said, I think that the path of redemption of artist and art is both difficult and fraught with traps. It can easily derail and slip away through the slightest crack in the best of intentions. Your attempt to salvage and redeem tradition in the face of external and internal forces in your native culture is commendable. At the same time, though, the question must be asked, Can the artist of today really salvage tradition and redeem him/herself and art?
CsZs - I believe that we could overcome the bad situation. Nostradamus predicted that Hungary would disappear from the map by the year 2000. Many believe we are heading in that direction; but I think it doesn't have to be that way, if we believe in ourselves and justice.
Somebody said to me that my works are like prayers. I like that. As I said before, there is no ars poetica to introduce this work, just an untranslatable ancient Hungarian prayer. I believe this energy goes around and around to the hearts and heals us. In the end, I want to make sure I am not the missing color, whatever the destiny of my nation and culture may be.
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Cseke Zsuzsanna is a Hungarian artist, presently based in New York.
Dorcas Gelabert - NY-based artist, independent curator, professional graphic designer.
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