Bodonyi Emőke (szerk.): Lélekvándorlásaim. Péreli Zsuzsa kiállítása. 2017.11.30 - 2018.02.25. Ferenczy Múzeum, Szentendre (Szentendre, 2017)
motifs are the tree that casts a beneficent shade and offers security and a refuge, and the soldier who rests and contemplates underneath it. The Musicians Are Bach (1982) synthesises Péreli's commitment to folk culture as an essential value, and was based on a photograph of Máramaros musicians. They may be the heralds of freedom, bringing back the suppressed folk tradition, while the tumbling wall that serves as a fence may refer to the slow decay of the political regime of the time, and the snow-capped mountain tops in the background may designate an opening, free world. Golden Age During her 1986 visit to Greece, the artist was touched by the art of Eastern Christianity more profoundly than ever before. This was when she started to weave icons and began to employ the objects of folk religiousness, producing a set of "golden Gobelins.” Child Madonna (1986) was among the first to be made. With the golden and silver threads she used around the face, Péreli sought to attain a plastic effect similar to the repoussé of an icon she saw in the monastery of Lindos. The honesty and sadness radiating from the eyes of the little girl who is represented en face, and of the porcelain doll in her arms, are set off by the small, playful patterns in the background's woven lace and the border, as well as by the incorporated feathers. The children in Golden Age (1986) are self-contained personalities enclosed in on themselves, not listening to each other. They share the same fate, however, as their childhood does not get enough attention; they seem as if they had been sat down randomly by the festive table of some cold boarding school. The title of the work and the precocious seriousness of the figures also have a message: while childhood is to be respected, its values are also to be nurtured. The artist started to work on Christmas 1989 during the revolution in Timisoara and the last days of Ceau§escu's regime in Romania. Those historic events were broadcast live, with the whole country riveted to the TV sets and radios, waiting for freedom to arrive for their friends and relatives and all the people of Romania, for the fall of the hated regime. In a situation that closely affected us all, Zsuzsa Péreli could not but respond with sensitivity. The wooden panel is absent from behind the repoussé that represents Mary, who turns slightly to the left, the infant jesus on her arm, and the saints on either side: instead of their painted faces, a black fabric can be seen. From the frame, which is woven from gold and silver threads, and whose top is stepped, hang objects on golden threads, like votive offerings: bullet cases, prison cell keys, Romanian coins, and added subsequently, a wiretapping device removed from a phone—relics of the fallen regime. From a distance, the profane objects glitter with reflected light, and the shine of the gold touches the viewer; up close, reality and the objects of history await. The black void that replaced the faces is extremely evocative: man has elevated himself above God. Passageuay in the early 1990s Zsuzsa Péreli introduced new instruments of expression, whose salient features were an ever broader horizon and the use of illusory spaces. Greetings from Felsőszenterzsébet is a representative example of the construction method that preceded it, with the emphasis on the figure that dominated the foreground and obscured most of the natural scenery in the background. By contrast, the figures now grew smaller, their gestures reflected the rhythm of their environment, and as they drew further into the background, their personal features became less distinct. Straight roads or winding rivers leading into the distance also added to the sense of deep picture spaces. Examples of this image type include the monumental Anthem (1996) and those tapestries which the specialist literature refers to as the metaphysical works. The artist visited Pompeii in 1989. The two-thousandyear-old relics and the imminence of the new millennium confronted her with the depth of time with an unprecedented force. Of the resulting works, two made in 1993 are to be mentioned first: On Celestial Shores and Looking out of the Credible (not on view at this exhibition) are very compelling representations of the new theme, the connections between the universe and our life on Earth. In the former, a figure sitting on a small corner of land, perhaps the end of the world, gazes at the horizon between the sky and the sea; in the latter, two characters stand on a stage-like terrace that stretches against a dizzying starry sky. The motifs of the other related tapestries are marked by a contemplation of time and space within broader dimensions. Pompeii Window (2000) transports the viewer over the ages by evoking a specific historical past. In the centre of the subtle, painterly surface, which resembles the red background of Pompeii murals, there is an opening in the wall: we see a moonlit scenery beyond the pedimented window, which is embraced by columns. The ivy vines that run from the window and represent the immortality of art connect three smaller motifs at a distance from each other: a laurel-wreathed Bacchus, who
