Veszprémi Nóra - Szücs György: Budapest szétlövetése. Pauer Gyula ’56-os sztéléi (A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai 2006/4)

THE BLASTING OF BUDAPEST 1956 STELES In 1956, Zoltán Gazsi Sr., the father of a cameraman friend mine, Zoltán Gazsi Jr., walked the streets of Budapest, and took photographs. He went round all the places I did as a fifteen-year-old. His camera was a Leica, and he shrewdly used his wife as a cover when making exposures. After his death, she hid the photos kept in a Forte photographic-paper box usual at the time among her lingerie. They have now, after fifty years, turned up; no one has ever seen them. It was truly heart-rending to see scenes I had personal experiences of. The series consists of a hundred pieces — I myself had not visited so many places. From among them, I selected those which show places where I had been. Using these, I assembled these artworks. I wanted to display these calvaryesque stations representing the bombardment of Budapest to the city audience in monumental sizes in a public place. Instead, I decided to enlarge the small photos into 70x100x5, colour paintings, appearing as pseudo-marble steles. I used stretched canvases, oil and varnish. I will have the exhibition put on at the National Gallery for the 50th anniversary of the uprising. The original photos and related documents are part of the exhibition. My cameraman friend visited the scenes where his father had taken the photos, thus their current state can also be viewed. Acoustically, the exhibition is complemented by a sound environment, remixed by Mihály Víg from the hits of the period, which were collected and performed by my composer friend Ferenc Darvas. Gyula Pauer Budapest, September 13, 2006.