WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE!

2009

During the past fifty years, the visual art representation of worker depictions and work processes has been completely compromised in our region. There is nothing surprising in this, if we take into account the history of Eastern Europe. Different political courses and power structures have carried out drastic transformations in many forms of visual representation, thereby characteristically demonstrating their ideological system. The irony is that, despite the intention, the process brought about only minor aesthetic changes; the formality and "heroism" remained, only the themes were changed. Heroism often masked a simple, embarrassing effort.

The installation is a portable, demountable worker's monument, which draws heavily on the devalued depictions of workers since the regime change. The representation of the worker and work has been marginalized over the past twenty years, although it has not completely disappeared. Visual representations of the world of manual labor are mainly found in the fashion world (Dockers, CAT) which perpetuate old stereotypes of the worker as a masculine figure made of iron and mud. The figures you create not only perpetuate these visual clichés, but are decidedly androgynous and airy. Some of the figures wearing silver clogs wear white suits made of elastic organza material, deliberately blurring the differences of leisure and work.

The body parts and movements of the figures were assembled from different genres of existing monuments. The pathos formulas of the figures of the sculpture group are lined up according to a specific repetition, keeping the effect mechanism and dynamism of the monuments. Faces with unique expressions are unique. The faces are four anonymous genre figures, i.e. archetypes, while the figures in the background are portraits of real personalities.

One of the figures bears the face of Horst Tapper, Derrick, who is not a working-class character, but the moral lesson of the detective he personifies and his dedicated work as a moral educator predestined him for the genre role. The other figure is Henry Rollins, an American musician/show host/spoken word performer, whose autobiographical book "Get in the Van" can also be read in Hungarian. The book is about Henry, who fought for his dreams and spent the eighties on the platform of a tour bus, who at the time was the frontman of the punk band Black Flag. The bull-neck figure competes with a more massive worker figure not only because of his work ethic and hyperactivity, but also because of his facial character.

The hybrid composition can be found in the group's aluminum pedestal system, as well as in the other elements of the installation's visuals. The system of sports podiums merges with the monumentalizing impact of dictatorial monuments and the sterility of the fashion industry's merchandise consoles.

In the background of the installation, you can see a logo on a lightbox: "WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE!". The Hungarian version of the slogan would have been overly restrictive, with a narrow field of interpretation. The slogan also appears as a pseudo-brand on some of the figures and their clothes, supplemented by other pseudo-brands, all of which nominalize radical, revolutionary processes that are closely related to the historically changing role of the worker.

Photos: Gyula Várnai, Árpád Csaba Horváth