 |
|---|
|
|---|
Soul images in the Exhibition Hall of the Budapest Gallery
Water is deep and dark, yet it affords us opportunities for catching fish or a wreck. Outer space is deep and dark, yet we can see in it because matter emits rays of light. By contrast, the human body seems to outwit us. It has our souls inside, this much is certain, but we do not know where to find it. We cannot see it, touch it or separate it out. It defies the yearning to analyse, the passion to kill and segment. This intangible quality of the soul may well be a vexing question only to us who no longer do or can believe. My body is the devil’s vessel, the believer says, which God tries to use, only to take out what He has previously put into it, and to throw it away. Thus, to the believer, what requires explanation is the material quality of the body and existence rather than the soul itself. The believer has an easier job to tackle, I think, not because he can grasp, smell and see the object, but because he can settle his problem in no time with reference to his God. Those of us who are non-believers deep down inside are left alone with our doubts.
Aliona’s photograms are images of these doubts. Images of the swirling soul which is locked up in the body. She cannot only see but also show us what we are carrying blindly in the frightened and vulnerable vessel. Yes, desire, loneliness – with or without someone around, – and anxiety have shapes. So do attraction, fear and preparation for something. Or being tied up, belonging to and struggling. Melancholy and resignation, too. Memory opening up. In Aliona’s images inner, not this-worldly reality precipitate into shapes and colours – coal black and chalk white –, as if developed straight from the darkroom of the body. They are sections and abstractions, yet dynamic. Sometimes they even have an evident inner story to tell. Like in all of us, there is music playing and wind blowing in them. They may be a wise and mature play, angel in the soot, bat in the flour.
I look at the images, Aliona’s soul pieces. I look at them and I am bored to think of photographs of material particles, the naked, colourful DNS-strings, the smile on the faces of scientists and the creatures of far-away civilizations. I would not be particularly surprised if they turned up.
Szerző: Gyula Zeke
Fordító: Translated by Dezső Bánki
Nyelv: english
Megjelenés helye: Élet és Irodalom
Megjelenés dátuma: 1999
 |
|
|
|---|