Karina Mendreczky & Katalin Kortmann-Járay, whose installation "People look like flowers at last" we showed at Parallel Vienna 2022, were honored with the Esterhazy Art Award 2023 in Budapest in January 2024.
Statement of the jury
For anyone exhausted by the burden of posthumous time, the installation by Karina Mendreczky and Katalin Kortmann-Járay offers a nostalgic, surreal refuge. However, it is a gray Lilliputian land, a fenced-in garden in which the moment seems to stand still and the water from the pressure fountain in the air seems frozen like glass. Under the black and white moon of femininity, tiny, basket-headed people dance on the sand-colored hills, while handkerchiefs and brassieres made of Japanese paper dry on the taut clotheslines. The paths through the work, built with mythological sensibility, lead past post-apocalyptic glass houses and grotesque mushrooms with human faces. Ears of wheat move motionlessly in the invisible wind, and the melody of "Tell me where the flowers are" sounds softly. The jury praised the artist duo as one of the three winners for their original approach.
Congratulations to Karina Mendreczky and Katalin Kortmann-Járay on winning the Esterhazy Award 2023.
The exhibition will be on display at Esterhazy Palace in Eisenstadt from April 2024.
Find out more about the Esterhazy Art Award 2023 >>>
Find out more about Karina Mendreczky >>>
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Karina Mendreczky & Katalin Kortmann-Járay, exhibition as part of the Esterhazy Award 2023, "Breaking the Frame - Making Future", LUDWIG MÚZEUM Budapest, photo credit: Mátyás Gyuricza