NEMERE KEREZSI

Looking for an alliance

We see ants hurriedly rescuing their puppets back into the safety of deeper passages. In a matter of minutes, the scene is cleared. The intruder is the camera and, of course, the man behind the camera. The ants were probably carrying on with the usual morning activities of the colony, when the artist, without any bad intention, spontaneously lifted the small stone slab that is the memorial of Walter Thiemann, a German airborne scout who died in Brăila in 1917 at the age of 26.

Every human move in the interaction between man and nature has consequences - this is one of the definitions of the Anthropocene. However, the metaphor of intrusion captured in the video also applies to relationships between people: through our very existence, we, willingly or unwittingly, constantly interfere in the lives of others. We are all affected by everyone else's lives. This implication can be direct or indirect, beneficial or destructive. If it becomes a direct connection between two people, it could lead to an alliance and ultimately to the building of a community.

The awareness of such interconnectedness and the search for connection or alliance is at the core of the artist’s program, as he is convinced that where there is no community, there can only be indifference (Covenant). This program permeates the works presented at the exhibition, which provide an insight into Nemere Kerezsi's more than twenty years of creative activity. The works are based on a direct observation of reality and, in many cases, on its long, in-depth research.

In the Three shoes ensemble, the artist creates a personal post-mortem relationship through sculptural tools: taking the wooden shoes created by his shoemaker grandfather as shop-window advertisement as models, he creates the monument of movement. In Double Denial, he correlates two moral standards, the principle of "tooth for a tooth", against the belief of the ancient Egyptians that only those whose hearts are lighter than a feather can cross into the afterlife.

There are several works about human intervention in nature (In the Apiary) or in (human) society (Thiemann-Etüde, Caprices de Berlin). The latter raises the artist's narrative to a historical scale. It goes from the scientific level research of the arc in the cloud, the symbol of God's covenant with man after the Flood, all the way to waiting for this sign (various forms of the halo phenomena) to appear above emblematic sites of historical trauma inflicted by the Nazis and Soviets in Berlin. In his latest work Looking for an alliance featured in the exhibition, the video taken in Brăila this April, the drone that sweeps the city from the port to the distant shimmering night lights of the Ukrainian border region can be both an artistic and a military tool.

The Vertical Independent process work, which the artist began at the age of 23 in the garden of the University of Fine Arts in Budapest, provides one possible model of individual freedom: a departure from earthly possession. The vertically erected cropland cannot be owned, and it gradually disintegrates. (The 19-year process of natural erosion was abruptly interrupted a few months ago when the work disappeared under unknown circumstances.)

Returning to the images of Caprices de Berlin: the arc in the cloud is hopeful, carrying the possibility of a new beginning. Kerezsi stresses, however, that we must pay attention to its specific nature: halo phenomena appear before the rain, not after it, like a rainbow. Thus, it is not a reward after the storm, but a symbol of an alliance in which us humans are partners and have the freedom to decide against evil. We could say that it is up to us what kind of rain will follow.

The exhibition is dedicated to the memory of László Beke (1944-2022), an art historian who was an activist of friendship and alliance building.

Sebestyén György Székely

The exhibition was curated by 

the artist and Sebestyén György Székely 

Assistant curator: Hunor Vécsei 

Design: Árpád Péter 

Quadro Team: Andreea Cărăușu, Ferenc Domokos, Xenia Tinca 

Special thanks to everyone who supported the realization of the exhibition: Leo Anghel, Bertram von Boxberg, Brăila City Hall, Barnabás Demján, Lehel Dobondi, Zsolt Kató, Kázmér Kovács, Marian Pascu, Raluca Pascu, Eszter Sipos, Kornél Szilágyi, Zsolt Tofán