MARK FRIDVALSZKI

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2024
 
Industry, a project by Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.) and Uferhallen during the Berlin Art Week at Uferhallen, Berlin
Curated by Marius Babias, Arkadij Koscheew; rollercoaster by Oscar Peters, The Twins, 2024; photos by n.b.k., dotgrain.info
 
The work draws from an open-source vintage photograph I found on Fortepan, the Budapest based community photo archive. The picture shows a group of children on a rocket metal climber in Budapest in 1965. These urban playground accessories were common in an age, when cosmic fantasies and the human striving for cultural, existential and scientific progress was part of everyday life in the Eastern Bloc from Berlin through Warsaw till Budapest. The rocket shape can be read as a complex set of metaphors, it may represent the euphoric era of space exploration, romantic visions of science-fiction fantasies or as a sharp arrow striking into the unknown. At once, the rollercoaster, the rocket climber, and the vintage photo can be read as a critical take on nostalgia, “a longing for home that no longer exists, or perhaps has never existed” (Svetlana Boym). At the same time, I see the children in the picture as representatives of a future generation – past and present. How has the role of youth changed throughout society since the 1960s? What function is projected onto the youth of an aging society? And how do they define their own responsibilities and rights? With student activism rising in Hungary but also Europe-wide, this work is also dedicated to the concept of viewing the youth as active builders of future concepts of society.
 
Cosmonauts, 2024, digital print on hard foam board, 45x70x1 cm
Source: →Fortepan no. 30304, 1965
 
 
 
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© Mark Fridvalszki 2016–2025