András Cséfalvay

In my earlier artist practice I have been seeking fusion of my interests in historical narratives, in musical and textual composition and their use as a contemporary art medium. I began my research of the metaphoric in this sense of merging and layering story fragments, text and music. Eventually I called them operas, since the resemblance in structure. My videos are usually based on a historic text and are accompanied with composed music. The scores would allow live performance even, or staging as a theatre piece. I believed in commanding myself in all the roles, the designer, the composer, the playwright, the director and the actor.

Thematically I usually talk about the search for an artist’s role, and about the artist’s mission. And I believe there exists a place for this very discussion not only in theory but in the field of art itself. I tend to think of the artist as a fallen hero, ever struggling with messianic ambitions. Yet beyond the ability to provide universal solution (by what authority whatsoever?) and beyond this puny ambition of being healers, I am mostly fascinated by the beauty of this fall. And now fall becomes something more general.

In my recent work I am beginning to feel less enthusiastic about the omnipotent power of the Gesamtkunstwerk. And although my works still linger in the not explicitly definable medium sphere, I am searching for simplifications which come after stages of complexness. In my recent work I still use old world cultural phenomena, but analogously apply rules to new phenomena. The birth of the tragedy is in 1969 on the moon. Pluto the used-to-be planet becomes an Ibsen character. Truman Capote’s characters walk in Bratislava. Voldemort is unveiled when a child cries, the emperor is naked.