Installation Project 98 · Installáció Projekt 98

participants ↓ résztvevők

(1) How long have you been making installations?

My first real installation was made in 1988 for solo exhibition in Pécsi Galéria.

(2) Why did you choose to make installations and not anything else?

This is how I can express myself.

(3) What do you think of your own works?

I beleive there is a thought behind them.

(4) What do you think the difference is between your own work and other installations?

This is an independent media which is used differently by everyone. There is a lot of bluff here as well just like anywhere else. I like the most the installations made by the Poirier couple or Imre Wéber from the Hungarians. The installations made in the '70-s by Pop artists such as Kienholz, Paul Thek etc. were rather instructive for me.

(5) What do you think of the relationship of traditional artwork and installation?

They both are works of art. The installation disappears at the end of the exhibition, documentation could be problematic issue for art history. There is no good documentation, only attempts.

(6) What is the size and material of an installation determined by?

I suppose they are determined by the thought, the given space and the financial possibilities.

(7) Could you mention the installation you consider to be the largest and the smallest one?

The smallest is: the installation built by Charles Simonds on his own body. The biggest could have been Paul Thek's work, “The death of a hippy” on the Dokumenta in Kassel or Kienholz's work about lynching of blacks shown in the same place in 1972 or in 1977.

(8) Is there any object or idea that cannot be installed?

No, there is not.

(9) How does environment affect the installation of the work?

The environment is absolutely determinant - the exhibition space effects the installation.

(10) Do you know any fact that restricts the possibilities of installation?

The lack of ideas, thought or money.

(11) Do you like making installation for order or at request?

I use to work for my own requests which I happily fulfill. (Perhaps I would be able to make a work for request in 1998.) I would like to create a work of a lasting material which would be permanent.

(12) What do you think of preserving an installation?

Photography, video, measurements, descriptions together could perhaps preserve somewhat, though the installation is the art of the moment.

(13) Can the value of an installation be estimated and how?

I don't really understand this question as we have problems determining the value of a painting already. Art historians should value/rank the media itself. Perhaps most of these questions should be addressed to them, especially to those art historians who organize exhibitions and are present at the emergance of such works .

(14) How does copyright apply to installations preserved only in documents?

This is a complex issue, because the rights of the photographer making the documentations have to be considered as well.

(16) Your questions, if there is any, and your answers to them.

My question is: Why do I always realize that my works should be documented when I had already dismantled them?

GELLÉR B. István (H)