57th International Art Exhibition Venice, Hungarian pavilion, 13 May – 26 November 2017

Artist: Gyula Várnai 
Text: György Szegő 
Photos: Hanna Szegő 

The slogan chosen for the Hungarian exhibition addresses the wide world, as the biannually held art exhibition in Venice is the largest contemporary scene of art nowadays. Representatives of art from 86 countries participate in it, and via the Central Pavilion and thanks to the selection made by Arsenale, the chief curator it actually offers an overall view of the main tendencies in contemporary visual art. The concept was phrased by Christine Macel, one of the leading art historians of Pompidou Centre in the form of the slogan Viva Arte Viva – which may sound trivial at first – to draw the attention of the world to the role of „artists in contemporary conflicts who stand up for humanism via the means of art”. The exhibition of the Hungarian pavilion, which is an assemblage by Gyula Várnapi, actually represents this attitude by commemorating world peace which seems to be an eternal utopia.