Internationally
celebrated artist Ilona Nemeth, recently written
up in the New
York Times for her provocative survey/installation
in Budapest is bringing her art to Providence by
way of New York City, where she is a Fulbright scholar.
Ms. Nemeth, whose sculptures and installations have
been shown in Slovakia, Hungary, The Czech Republic,
Italy, Japan, Germany, New York, the Netherlands,
Sweden and South Korea, will bring her audio piece,
27 meters (30 yards) to the sidewalk outside AS
220 on Empire Street. Originally shown in Brno,
Czech Republic in 2004, this piece contains six
monologues of different people. For example, both
a Czech hairdresser living in the town for 16 years
and a randomly chosen Finnish manager who had spent
one day in the city, are parts of the project. Visitors
can take one of the available headphones and have
a ‘walk’ with some chosen companion
from the small Central-European town Dunajska Streda.
The length of one of the three audio tracks corresponds
to a real route in Ilona's hometown in the Slovak
Republic, Dunajska Streda. The sound sequences were
recorded at one of the busiest intersection in the
town.
Artist:
Ilona Nemeth
Born in 1963 in Dunajska Streda, Slovakia, Ilona
Nemeth lives and works near Bratislava, Slovak Republic.
She studied at the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts,
Budapest – DLA master’s course (2000-2003)
and the Hungarian College of Applied Art –
Department of Typography and Typographic Art, Budapest
(1981-1986). In 2003 she was awarded the Prize of
the Ludwig Museum, in 2001 the Hungarian Ministry
of Culture and Education presented her with the
Munkacsy Mihaly Award and in 1998 she was awarded
the Slovak Visual Arts Prize by The Foundation for
a Civil Society, Bratislava, the Open Europe Prize
and the award of the Association of Hungarian Artists
in Slovakia. At the moment, she studies public art
as a Fulbright Scholar at NYU, New York.
Ilona Nemeth has exhibited in a number of solo and
group exhibitions in Slovakia, Hungary, The Czech
Republic, Italy, Japan, Germany, New York, the Netherlands,
Sweden, South Korea, including key solo exhibitions
at the Modern Art Oxford in 2006, Kozelites Galeria,
Pecs in 2005 and Retrospective at the Gyori Varosi
Muzeum, Gyor in 2004.
She represented Slovakia in the Czech and Slovak
Pavillion in Venice Biennale 2001. Her work is represented
in collections in the Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava
City Gallery, Ludwig Museum-Museum of Contemporary
Art in Budapest, Museum of Art, Zilina and the Kortars
Magyar Galeria, Dunajska Streda. Ms. Nemeth primarily
works with site specific installations, many of
which actively involve the audience. For more information
visit www.ilonanemeth.sk.
The
New York Times article By MICHAEL KIMMELMAN, February
6, 2008
Curator:
Viera Levitt
(formerly Viera Jancekova) worked as a curator in
one of Slovakia's leading Contemporary Arts Museum,
the Jan Koniarek Gallery located in the historic
town of Trnava from 1997. She became director of
this space in 2002, as the youngest director ever
in a public art museum in the Slovak Republic. Since
1996, she has curated or co-curated more than thirty
exhibitions in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Germany,
Austria, Luxembourg, and the USA.
She has given lectures and presentations about contemporary
art in Bratislava, Berlin, Rotterdam, Hiroshima,
New Delhi, Caracas, Wakefield and Providence, RI.
Since January 2006, she has lived in Rhode Island,
USA as an independent curator.
Sound
engineer: Roman Lasciak
Thanks: AS220, Bert Crenca and Neil T. Walsh,
and Pro Slovakia - Program of the Ministry of Culture
of Slovak Republic
Click here to read an article about
the project
