In
the first, sizeable room on the left, one finds Winterreise -
a work of art whose concern is orientation, localization,
the metaphor of direction and counter direction. It calls
one's attention to circumstances in which a fairly large
community, in a time when various fundamental changes are
taking place, have to face the past and the future. Directions
are queried - what is right and what is wrong or what is
good and what is bad: it questions even those basic values
which have, according to our ideology connected to orientation
as such, seemed unquestionable up to now. This work of art
symbolizes a situation in which leaving an actually relative
coordinate system, one that has always thought to be absolute,
where one's skills of orientation and certainty of consciousness
are lost. The title comes from Schubert's song cycle entitled Winterreise, the
very first line of which goes as follows: "I've arrived as an alien, and
now I depart as such". Two life-sized human figures share a pair of unusually
long skis and show their backs to each other in the posture of two cross-country
skiers. They are making an extraordinary effort in heading for two opposite directions
despite their shared skis. Their attitude suggests a protracted wandering rather
than a sportsman's dynamism. They wear a black cassock and a fencing mask. Inside
their masks there shines an electric light bulb, in the light, however it is
clearly visible that the masks are empty, and that they are not hiding their
wearer's countenance. The human figures, wearing ski mittens, instead of ski
poles, hold cross staffs in their hands, the imitation of a navigational-astrological
tool from the 17th century, although their posture is typical of the skier weighing
on ski poles. Above the two cassocked figures, almost under the ceiling, there
are two thick electric cables running parallel with the pair of skis. The fencing
masks and the overhead cable are connected to each other by a pair of trolleys
which provide the light bulb inside the mask with electricity. According to the
iconography of Balázs Kicsiny's work, the cassock, the electric bulb and the
trolley are attributes of certainty, whereas uncertainty and orientation are
characterized by the navigational tool, the cross staff, and by the pair of skis
representing means of transport, while the fencing mask can be seen as a symbol
of preparing for a defence. |
