Gábor Altorjay (b. 1946, Hungary)
Short Circuit Purse, 1968 / 2011

Tate Modern, London, UK / Visited 28/06/2018

I’ve been looking for a good excuse to include this piece in my blog for about a year now. I just love its wit and absurdity. Then, surely, there is a political interpretation in terms of subversion through short circuit, but for the time being I am incapable to focus on – or appreciate – the explicit political agendas in art, yet I feel I should acknowledge it.

So, to my excuses: 1) I have a penchant for witty absurd short-circuiting the viewer’s regular thinking circuits in order to trigger new meaning generation; 2) if we think in terms of genealogy, my growing up was surrounded by absurd humour and art with hidden meanings (as in the piece above), so it is most likely that my tastes and choices have been heavily informed by this type of art without me even realising. While I was not aware of Altorjay at the time, he can certainly be a symbolic stand-in for those I was aware of, but by now have forgotten.