The video was made for the 57th International Art Exhibition – Venice Biennale, where it was presented as part of Gyula Várnai’s Peace on Earth! exhibition. Gyula Várnai’s Peace on Earth! project is about the viability and necessity of utopias; about the fact that although our past conceptions of the future have not come true, new visions are required in every age in order for humankind to achieve its goals. As the current circumstances, including technological developments, world politics, global economic and natural crises or successive migration waves keep posing new challenges, our conception of the future is changing faster than before. The views of the Polish scifi author Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) about futurology represent a moderate and temperate take on humanity’s visions of the future. The video on display is a fictitious interview in the course of which the artist poses currently relevant questions that he edits into a televised 1970 presentation by Lem. The interview, which was made by Krakow Television, explores the notion and aim of futurology; it is not a dialogue between a reporter and scientist, because Lem expounds the subject according to his own line of thinking. In Várnai’s piece, the questions formulated and inserted by the artist refer to current dilemmas, which connect the past and the future: as a result, the answer to our presentday concerns arrives from 1970. The fifty years old footage and today’s concerns both delve into 21st century doubts, even if they do so from different perspectives. The piece is an homage to Lem’s thinking and work.
Gyula Várnai was born in 1956 in Kazincbarcika (Hungary). The artist’s influential practice is associated with a group of Hungarian neoconceptual artists who came to prominence in the 1990s. Known widely for his largescale installations, Várnai’s background in mathematics and physics informs much of his practice. Várnai’s works navigate along the fine line between the artistic and the quotidian, using everyday materials to create striking assemblages. His work has been shown widely in exhibitions across Europe and the United States. Recent solo and group exhibitions have been held in Budapest, Paris, Istanbul, Cologne and Rome. Gyula Várnai lives and works in Dunaújváros, Hungary.
Zsolt PETRÁNYI