Book I. (Literature / Irodalom)
Book II. (Garderobe / Ruhatár)
Book III. (Lucky News / Lóherék)
Book IV. (Floorplan / Alaprajz)
Book V. (Stereotypes / Frázisok)
Book VI. (Relic / Hagyaték)
Book VII. (Family / Család)
Book VIII. (Appendix / Függelék)
Works of Emese Kudász / Kudász Emese festményei

Emese Kudász started her career as a promising artist and soon had a trilingual catalogue printed about her work accompanied by a praising preface written by a prominent figure of the art world. The lofty text estranged its subject from the realm of the real, making it a challenge to discover my mother behind the inflated phrases.

On the days following her death I begun to categorize, document and photograph all her belongings, garderobe, writings, collections in the possible most objective manner. My goal was to construct a scheme or mechanism of capturing memory. My aim was not solely to chase the memory of my mother, but rather to come up with a general method of stabilization. Concurring with previous expectations, my fumbling around her living space disrupted the order she surrounded herself with. As a result of the excavation I discovered new or hidden facets of her personality and unexpected correlations between objects, but it still remains obscure whether the entirety of connections existed before or were only the result of my intervention. One could argue that there is no use of making an inventory if it implies the network between items to break up. Now, it seems that her memory would have been better and longer preserved — although hidden — if I left everything intact instead.

In a wooden box I found the printing blocks of the catalogue. Every New Year's Eve she melted some of the lead plates to make fortune telling lead castings. During the years most of the blocks were used up leaving behind only a few enigmatic lines in hungarian, french or in bulgarian.

Archeologists say: something buried for a long time is better kept that way. I guess what they mean by this is that exploration supports understanding, but later down the road artifacts may be never again returned to their state closest to original. The context preserved underground may not be reproduced in the open, findings will be scattered or in a worse scenario they will be lost. The excavation of ruins and documentation of passage may help to hold on to fading memories, but paradoxically it also speeds up the natural process of disintegration.

Ezek az utazások elmélyítették festöi szemléletét és gazdagították kifejezökészségét /
These trips deepened her artistic approach and enriched the readiness of expression
2012

30x45cm
pigment-print on archival paper, wood, glass
Edition 3+Ap

...jának emléke szól hozzánk a müvész egyéniségén keresztül. /
memory of ... speaks to us through the individuality of the artist.
2012

(detail / részlet)

Stereotypes is the fifth volume of Memory Guidebook.
Volumes VI-VIII. are coming soon...
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All photographs © Kudász Gábor Arion