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Our aim was to create a non-profit gallery that could be a gap filler. This gap is not uncommon for those living on a cultural periphery: people here do'nt talk about the fine arts, especially about its contemporary field, its national and international interrelations, and if they do talk about these, they only do it superficially.

At the same time the gallery would serve as a meeting point for the representation of the thoughts born between „Here” and „There”, between center and periphery. It would be a „box display panel” that would serve for the safe storage and transportation of the artworks as well as for the exhibition of them. Thanks to its mobility it would reach the public in places where there is usually not much talk about contemporary fine arts and the problems and questions it deals with( schools and cultural communities, hallways of universities, railway stations, and any other, either public or private place, that is fit to host such an exhibition).

The display of the art works would be accompanied by a presentation with the consent of the artists.

The attendant of the collection is the Bikmakk Cultural Society.

Nemere Kerezsi

Sepsiszentgyörgy
2005.02.08


The composite name comes from the double nature of the thing: it reveals a concept new and unusual, yet it also means the attempt to recover an ancient practice – and a traditional image of the world. As the new can equally be progressive or decadent, while the old can designate something either obsolete or classical, this is not a value judgement. What, then, is the talking about?

Like all restorations, this attempt must also bring about reinterpretation. For the past two centuries, the idea of a museum has meant a permanent collection at a permanent place. There is a permanent collection in this museum, but one that is not tied to a specific location: it is portable. It travels like the moving panoptic did once upon a time.

Hence, the museum is in itself an artistic act offered directly to its audience, which goes back to ancient methods while putting on show strictly contemporary art. It is an exhibition „carried on the back” and shown with the most modern technical means available. Seldom does an institution specialized in art shows any mediation; rather, there are individuals addressing to other individuals in the language of visual art.

As for the intermediate quality of the spaces – any space inhabited or visited by humans can become intermediate as long as, and provided that it shelters an unusual event different from its everyday functions. In this case it is an art exhibition. For a specific period of time, the space ceases to being its usual self, yet without turning into something else, for the happening is but a temporary one. The space becomes intermediate; it is made such by the presence of the portable museum. And the other way around: intermediate spaces are the ever renewed goal of the museum: this is how the portability acquires sense. It is a symbolic tie that reinterprets simultaneously – and revaluates – each of the four words composing the name. Thus:

intermediate does not refer to the physical quality of the space, but to its functions;
space is no longer the Cartesian abstract concept, determined by a geometrical reference system, but an actual place;
portable does not in the first place reflect a practical feature, but is part of a spiritual and artistic happening, a ritual of some sort;
museum is no longer the important, respectable and stable institution we know: it turns into a curiosity determined not by its label, but by the quality and impact of the collection.

The question is: does such an event leave a lasting mark on the space that, following its temporary presence, has become intermediate?

If it does, then the mark is in the memory. This is why the concept of a museum can acquire new content by wandering like comedians do since immemorial times. And spaces can incorporate new character by receiving for a while the portable museum. Nothing else happens than with those places where migrants set their camp for a longer or shorter time. The portable museum becomes an immaterial part of the intermediate spaces in the same way in which oral tradition keeps stories alive.

The strength and freshness of the PMIS comes precisely from its dual nature, which ceaselessly joins together things long gone with the eternal present.

Kázmér Kovács, 24th of April, 2006

 


The term of portable museum was invented by Marcel Duchamp, who made museums of his own life-work, first the one entitled The Green box (1934) and second the Boite-en-valise(Box in the suitcase):From or by Marcel Duchamp or Rrose Sélavy (1935/1941). While the first one consists of documents about his work, the second one contains small-size reproductions of his works of art. The later is much like a three dimensional catalogue of his life's work.

With these boxes a new genre entered the field of fine arts and later on numerous artists, especially those of the Fluxus, turned towards this new genre (Maciunas, Vautier). The popularity of the portable museums in the second half of the century could be explained by a growing demand to document the various artistic movements and this genre was a perfect medium to do that.

However the portable museum ran by Nemere Kerezsi is a bit different. It is different in the way that it is neither a documentation of his artistic work, nor a collection of everyday objects or signs of life. It is not a personal archive, or a box for memories.

Nemere Kerezsi asked various artists to create and/or donate an artwork to the museum. He did not want to make a museum of contemporary art or a collection of "big names", even though we can find some real big ones here. He wanted something like those collections of marvelous objects, where -if you were member of a well-informed circle-, you could find anything from precious stones and coins to pieces of the unicorn's horn in silver setting. But even this simile is not an accurate one, because Nemere is not dealing with some bizarre objects and he is not hiding his museum from the curious eyes of the public, on the contrary, he brings it forth.

Now that we considered some things that don't characterize this museum, let us take a closer look on what the real intentions of Nemere are.

If we open the box containing the panel system of this museum, it reminds us of the newsletters that used to hang on the walls of the schools (we had one of those, we used to call it zigzag). On this panel the artworks are presented and this box serves for their storage as well.

Nemere has grouped the artworks around one basic principle and this is what gives this museum its main idea. He is interested in intermediate spaces, in transitions, in things that are barely conceivable such as the transition between air and soil; he is interested in the pavement of the street (a transitional space itself), in the thin line between existence and nonexistence and the human condition in the interval between everyday life and redemption... And now we could go into a detailed analysis of the artworks one by one, but this is the job of the keeper of the museum who also gives us a presentation of this collection.

We have to state however, that Nemere's museum- because it is his, not as private property, but as his personal selection-, becomes his own installation. We can say that he includes other artists' works into his larger artwork. This way he sets up something like a large board game which we can understand only step by step. In this sense Nemere Kerezsi is using the concept of installation, a concept so popular with modern museums. The main idea is that the artworks reveal different layers of their meanings depending on the context in which they are presented. Surely the artworks presented here would have different meanings if they were in a different constellation or presented as a part of the oeuvre of each artist separately. It is interesting however that Nemere not only sets up this installation, but he also contributes to it with his own artwork ( Dawn ).

This "board-game" is then "shipped" to intermediate spaces in an attempt to become a gap-filler in places where fine arts are not institutionally presented. Thus whenever the museum is set up in schools, malls or railway stations, in big cities or small villages, this game is brought to the public to play with, showing us a way of understanding art. It is a good game, hope you enjoy it as well!

Sebestyén György Székely

April, 2006

 

 

 

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