ARTIST PROFILE

Szabolcs KissPál

  • Romania (b. 1967 in Tg.-mures (marosvásárhely))
  • Currently in Budapest, Hungary.
  • Szabolcs KissPál works in various media from photography to video, from installation to objects and conceptual interventions. His main field of interest is the intersection of new media, visual arts and social issues.

  • 2016

  • At the end of April 2017 the monument was vandalized with a sprayed tag.

  • Suspended 20explosion 201 20bratislava 202014
  • Suspended 20explosion 202 20bratislava 202014
  • Gisi 20fleischmann 20portrait
  •  - thumbnail

    1 / 1

    Suspended Explosion | 2016

The intervention articulated the abeyance of the collective memory in the post '89 Slovak society. The fragmented pieces of the removed Gottwald memorial were brought back in the space that once hosted it: the Freedom Square of Bratislava (Námestie Slobody). The 'exploded' fragments of stones reappeared as ghost of the suppressed and confused collective memory which struggles to redefine its own perspective and ritual objects of public commemoration from an utterly changed post socialist situation. On the stones the names of nine historical, political and cultural personalities were engraved as suggestions for a possible new public monument, leaving one untouched to make room for further suggestions. The intervention aimed at generating a public debate on the participatory and consensual formation of a collective memory space, which succeeds to embody both the pre- and post-socialist condition. Following a poll co-organized with the online magazine Dennik N, the personality acquiring the majority of the votes (32%) was Gisi Fleischman, a Zionist activist and leader member of the Jewish rescue group: Bratislava Working Group (1940’s), therefore the stone carriying her name remained on the square for one year.