Pauer, Gyula: IN MEMORIAM OF THE 1956 REVOLUTION (2006)

mixed media; granite; paper and cardboard; acrylic on aluminium; wood and synthetic resin
Gift of the artist, 2011

The cobblestone was one of the favourite themes of the period’s avant-garde artists, which nonetheless could not be exhibited publicly. It was featured in László Lakner’s hyperrealistic painting, Memorial of the Revolution (1971), in land art actions (Tibor Gáyor, Dóra Maurer), and in several objects, of which our collection contains Gyula Gulyás’s Portable Cobblestone (1972), and Sándor Pinczehelyi’s installation, The Cobblestone is the Weapon of the Proletariat (1974–88). With the concept he expounded in 1970 and the related technique, Gyula PAUER made works that were openly pseudo, with another, actually existing object and its light-shadow conditions appearing on the surface of each, underlining the hypocritical and manipulated nature of living socialism. For the same reason, Pauer seldom used direct political allusions. Created in memory of the 1956 revolution, this set of sculptures is a logical extension of Cobblestone and Its Copy, a work from 1971–72, a triplicate pseudo-copy of the original granite cobblestone, and an elaboration of the paradox inherent in the subtitle.

D. K.