Sarkantyu Judit: MESÉIM (Kiállítási katalógusok - Szentendre, Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, 2010)

A TALE ABOUT JUDIT SARKANTYÚ AND NOAH Today the world's contemporary art tells mainly about anxiety, angst and bad temper. If the subjects are not these, then the art deals with abstract theoretic problems in philosophic heights. All that is justified but it does not include in a comprehensive way the completeness, which should be otherwise the mission of art. And now, an artist is living in Szentendre, who is a ceramic artist but lets go such objects from her hand, which - in literal sense and metaphorically - fly out of her hands... For many years she has been lending wings to her birds and angels, who don't become lonely because they merge into an interior somewhere, where they are loved. Our artist shapes plants and trees as well for them, and to avoid at any price the loneliness of the birds, a variety of animals from dragons to elephants surround them. The artistically created world is however not without man; everything fits well into the environment filled with clowns and persons, who - why not? - fly hot air balloons. All this tells about freedom, about life and - by God - cheerfulness and humour. And of course about flying (of which the artist thinks with nostalgia ever since her childhood. Judit Sarkantyú - because who else would we refer to - is capable to do which causes to fail most ceramic artists: she makes the heavy material, the chamotte slabs and the white porcelain light and airy, able to fly. Therefore, her exhibitions deny such common places like the necessity of placing an art object on a stand or on the wall. Her creatures hang, swing, fly and float, while we mean to hear chimes ringing, bells pealing, not to mention the croaking, cooing, hooting and chirping, clowns make us laugh and the parachutists descend... We read in the Book of Moses, that God found Noah righteous among the wicked men and therefore he spared him. He told him to build an Ark to save his family and a representation of the world's animals in the Ark because He was going to destroy all creatures by the great flood. The water covered even the highest mountains and all living beings were blotted out from the earth, and only Noah, his family and the animals in the Ark remained. Noah sent out a raven and a dove from the Ark to see if the waters have subsided. But neither the raven nor the dove did find dry land. Seven days later another dove was sent out and it returned with a fresh olive leaf in her beak, an expression of the coming peace and hope for life. A third dove was sent out again and this time it did not return. Noah knew that the land was dry and new life could begin. Judit Sarkantyú is the Noah of the 21st century. Her Ark overcomes the trials even in the flood and now came to rest in the barn of Sonkád of the Hungarian Open Air Museum in Szentendre, like Noah's Ark on the mountains of Ararat. Her birds, together with the others all find dry land. There is hope for a restart. Thanks to the art and to the artist. May 2010 Balázs Feledy 4