Alba Regia. Annales Musei Stephani Regis. – Alba Regia. Az István Király Múzeum Évkönyve. 16. 1975 – Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei: C sorozat (1978)

Szemle – Rundschau - Fitz Péter: Erzsébet Schaár. The three Marx. p. 375–379.

Fig. 2: The Street (Székesfehérvár, Csók képtár 1974) various aspirations are united to move in a new direction. While still working in small plastics she formulated the humanoid space which determines people. In the exhibition of Székesfehérvár (1966) the realisation of the „inner and outer space" came out of her earlier works „Choir" and „Boy and Girl". In the later pieces the figures were simplified into mere silhouettes, standing silently in a Space separating them from each other and from the spectators. Between the figures of the composition a certain inner space, a sculptural, „lyric space" was formed — a vacuum Surrounded by architecture. The sculptural-architectural determination, and transformation of Space Surpassed the possibilities of Small plastics. By the end of the 'sixties the artist had developed the new, monumental, human-scale space dimension Style. liy the middle of the 'seventies she had gynthetized all her former aspirai ions in the creation of „Street". The two basic themes of her art formation of human portraits and formation of space surrounding man arc united herein. Her thoughts circle round human existence: lonesomeness, lack of connections, defeneelessness, yearning for a community and its lack -— all of them private feelings of societyforming man, yet, considered together, they Still reflect upon society fixing its state. This is why Schaár's message rises to a universal level. „Street" (Székesfehérvár 1974) with its slightly curved line, its irregularly distributed wall planes, with portraits placed behind doors and windows in a symbolic space - Lőrinc Szabó, Petőfi, Bartók, Kodály, Károlyi, Radnóti, Kernstock, Móra and others — with the „life-carved faced" women, could be called the architecture of memories. One of the most striking features of this work is its openness. In 1974 it Seemed that an almost unlimited Sculptural way has been opened since this work of art can be erected at will and completed with further figures. It can be changed, new variations can be born and it can be executed in precious material. This piece is a Synthesis of „open" works of art and of the closed, palpable Sculptural thought which demonstrate that the traditional conceptions of works of art do not quite tally with „Street", or with the aspirations of Schaár's art. In 1975, in Luzern, „Street" was erected for the Second time. This was not an unchanged presentation of the work in its previous form but a recreation. The construction of space was altered and as far as it can be followed from the photographs, the entire work is more disciplined, rather rigid and the „inhabitants" were changed. In 1974 the „Street" was leading Somewhere and its end was open. One could not guess what awaited us at the end. In 1975 a perpendicular wall of the axis closed it, forming a blind-alley. The uniform ledge-line of the 1974 „Street" was disrupted by disturbing verticals. This first attempt to re-create the work did not improve its quality and did not reach the level of the original. After Schaár's death the openness of her art is but a fiction, though her Spirit allows the organizer to deviate from the exact plan of the first two realisations, adjusting it to a given space. That this did not happen at the second exhibition in Székesfehérvár in 197(i was chiefly due to experience gained in Luzern. On the other hand the original site of the 1974 exhibition permited the organizers to stick to the original plan. The Sculptural material of „Street" is polyurethane foam, the so-called „hungarocell," while that of the portraits is always plaster. None of them is „precious" material. Polyurethane foam is a white, ephemeral, rigid plastic; material, very malleable and easily handled. Its great drawback, however, is that it is not durable. As a plastic material it radiates its temporary character, yet it is apt to be formed into „walls", „houses". Its cold white colour also helps the communicative contents of the work. Even the fact of being transcient, temporary, conveys depth. Only the white plaster portraits can survive in this world although if any of them should be replaced by a bronze variant, the entire effect would be disrupted. Perhaps „Street" might once be carried out in some durable material — in cut stone or gome durable plastic material, e. g. polyester — and in this case the portraits must follow suite in the Same material. We can certainly assert that a Marx in bronze is going to be another work of 378