Remaking history

Last fall, when spontaneous anti-government demonstrations and riots broke out on Budapest's streets, many thought that it was 1956 all over again. A new revolution. The tragic uprising of the Hungarians against their Soviet occupiers in '56 was being re-enacted on the eve of that great historical event's 50th anniversary, they thought.

"The demonstrators claimed to be making history," said Csaba Nemes, whose video animation exhibition Remake I-X. has now opened at Óbuda's Kiscelli Museum. "They never took notice of the fact that everything that was happening was an embarrassing remake of the events that had occurred in 1956." In other words, the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.

Nemes's new exhibition comprises 10 short animations dealing directly or obliquely with last year's violent street demonstrations. In addition to the three which were already shown at Knoll Gallery Budapest last spring, there are seven newly completed animations of various lengths and styles, all of them engaging and interesting.

Nemes's raw material for the animations is neither free drawing nor the drawing-over of authentic footage of the demonstrations. Rather, he had actors re-enact the events (remaking the remake?), then used them as the basis for animation.

Túrórudi, one of the best, shows the demonstrators, carrying Hungarian tricolor and red and white striped Árpád flags, breaking into the Hungarian Television headquarters. After a dazed moment contemplating their historic action, they unleash their unfocused violence on the Túró Rudi machine, releasing the popular curd and chocolate bars on the floor, only to be stomped under combat boots. History degenerates into pathetic farce.

Helyzetjelentés (Situation report) mixes real life camera work with animation. A woman on her cell phone talks about the street actions, while animated policemen square off against the demonstrators.

The starkly black and white Nem t'om (I dunno) shows a rioter who has just evaded the police after participating in the siege of the MTV building. He tells a woman that he doesn't know what it was all about. Far from consciously making history, he's just in it for the action.

The hypnotically beautiful Ártatlanul jöttünk a földre (We came innocently/guiltlessly to the Earth) shows a knight-like mounted riot police officer astride a horse, stroking the animal. In the background "Every police officer came from the moon" is the line that begins each verse of a poem. The video suggests purity and guiltlessness - hardly associated with the police force these days - and at the end the officer removes the riot helmet revealing that "he" is a beautiful woman.

Freedom fight?

Barikád, in two scenes, first shows huge block letters out on the street saying "Budapest, the Capital of Freedom."

Second, the word Freedom is the barricade behind which the "freedom fighters" take cover as they engage the tear-gas throwing, rubber-bullet-shooting policemen. Were those men really fighting for freedom, or were they just fighting? And there are more, all of which are thought-provoking, yet ambivalent in their presentation of last year's history in the (re-)making.

Each animation is shown on its own flat screen monitor, with a set of headphones, each with its own comfy beanbag seat in front. The only unfortunate thing for viewers who don't understand Hungarian is that most of the videos do rely at least in part on the language. But that ought not to prevent you from enjoying the best art produced in Hungary in the last year.

Csaba Nemes: Remake I-X.

Kiscelli Museum

Buda, District III, Kiscelli utca 108.

Until January 13.

Open: Tue-Sun 10am-4pm