2023
video, 22’32”
cameraman: Levente Vigh
editor, audio engineer: József Tasnádi
curator, producer: Szabolcs Süli-Zakar
director: József Tasnádi
“house (oikos) and labyrinth (labyrinthos)
fate (moira) and self-righteousness (autodikaiōsis)
middle (mesotēs) and discipline (peitharchia)
passion (pathos) and moderation (metriopatheia)
concentration (enatenēsis) and discernment of the time (krisis chronou)
creation (dēmiourgia) and passionlessness (apatheia)
learning (mathēsis) and oblivion (lēthē)
discernment (diakrisis) and memory (mnēmē)
practice (praktikē) and contemplation (theōria)
passivity (pathētikotēs) and silence (echemythia)
acquisition (apoktēsis) and distrust (dyspistia)
necessity (anankē) and virtue (aretē)
soul (psychē) and psychic slackness (atonía)
accidental (tychaíos) and self-sufficiency (autarkeia)”
József Tasnádi: Still-Life (Epilogue)
József Tasnádi’s film is about Loránd Bögös, or more precisely about his way of life, which made him a free-spirited exploiter of himself, through the working method and action of object-making, creating a work object out of himself. As a consequence of his obsessive object-making habit, his creations have constricted the air of his living space, slowly excluding the artist himself. He let art take over all the space in his house and by virtue of its non-functionality, to fill it. This working method soon became a programme, a lifestyle. In his house, in his experimental laboratory, the camera follows the narrowed paths that Loránd has taken, blurring the reality of everyday existence with the nature of permanent observation and assumption.
Tasnádi’s film is particularly useful in exploring the art of Loránd Bögös, because for Tasnádi, just like for Bögös, it is the method of making art through which he practices and processes life. For them, art-making is not a profession, but a life technique in the Kafkaesque sense.[1]
[1] This is how art historian János Szoboszlai described Tasnádi’s creative attitude. Szoboszlai, János: Joyride as essay, parable and contemplation, in: Tasnádi József: Apóriák/Puzzlements, kiállítás katalógus / exhibition catalogue, MODEM, Debrecen, 2022, p. 278.