pavilion-PAVILION

The first version of this site-responsive installation was originally presented in 2009 in two of those Mulberry-garden (Epreskert) studios of the Hungarian University of Fine Arts which were once used by sculptor Alajos Stróbl. The two, formerly connected rooms gave home to plaster copies of antique statues, including that of the Parthenon frieze, which is still located in the same building in Budapest.

According to historic photographs, Stróbl kept changing the relative positions of the copies, therefore he allowed the works in the making to enter into new constellations of forms. Since everything was a copy – often the copy of a copy –, the statues were repeatedly transformed, creating a different overall view in every new constellation. These groupings are conspicuous parts of the photographs made of the studio, Stróbl himself must have come to appreciate their importance and made them part of his subsequent artistic practice.

In 2009, as part of the György Jovánovics class at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts, this installation explored the phenomenon of feedback. The sound instrument built from four analogue Reel-to-Reel tape recorders installed in-between the Mulberry Garden studios repeats the gesture of copying and reinterpreting space. Its title pavilion-PAVILION signals its basic concept, the exploration of the sound of the two different sized rooms. The installation was set up twice, first inside the Mulberry Garden studios in 2009, and it was installed between a hall and a corridor of Kunsthalle Budapest (Műcsarnok) for the exhibition On the edge of perceptibility (2014). The image was taken by Attila Zérczi in the Mulberry Garden in 2009.

A contemporary newspaper article provides a list of statues then visible in the two studios of Stróbl: "In the hall right of the antechamber stands a figure from the Arany monument for Nagykőrös, the Old Sheppard, newly finished by the master, along with a bust of Count Gyula Széchenyi. Here is Gusztáv Keletis funerary monument, still in the making, Miklós Izsós bust, and a bear struggling with a mouflon—a faithful likeness of the bear killed by Prince Henry of Prussia this winter at the Betlér hunt. There is also a boars head; the latter two statues will be items of interest at the coming international hunting exposition of Vienna.

Another hall (smaller room of the installation) holds Justitias seated statue in multicolour marble; this is for an exhibition in Rome. A host of further sculptures, large and small, remind one of the significant sculptural history of Mr. Strobl, as well as the bright prospects of his future. Working alongside him are his students, László Vaszary, Lajos Rápolli, and Károly Székely, busy with new works of art." Huszadik Század, March 1910.