Borderline case — Renáta Pintérová

2022 Borderline Case – Contemporary Reflections on Central and Eastern European Identity at MODEM Modern és Kortárs Művészeti Központ / MODEM Center for Modern and Contemporary Art

In some aspects Borderline Case is the continuation of the 2018 art exhibition „Time of our lives?”, which reviewed the works of emerging Hungarian artists. The exhibition puts on display the works of fourteen young artists from five countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Romania), most of which were made for this occasion. The title Borderline Case was inspired by the novel by Péter Hunčík, a psychiatrist of Hungarian origin who lives in Slovakia, presenting the 20th-century history of the region through the story of the inha bitants of a small Slovak border town with a mixed population. One the one hand, the term suggests that setting clear-cut boundaries has always been a crucial question in Central and Eastern Europe. On the other hand, it has always been hard to decide whether the region belongs to the West or to the East. The title was chosen spe- cifically because it does not contain the slightly self-iro nic stereotype that compares the region to the “West”. Although the artists are members of a generation socialized in a globalized world, at the same time their lives are inevitably influenced by regionalism in the most different areas. The important question to ask is to what extent their identity is affected by this and how it is reflected in their artworks. Historian Gábor Egry contributed to the preparation of the exhibition by helping to outline the historical context. The histo- rical review interpreted Central and Eastern Europe in terms of three concepts: language, border, and the self-definition of the region. It was essential to point out those historical features which defined the region not only in the 20th century; therefore, the temporal focus of the historical examination was on the period between 1848 and 2021.

Text: Egry Gábor
Editor: Don Tamás

Photo by Dávid Bíró

Borderline Case, exhibition view, Modem, Debrecen, 2022

Renáta Pintérová, Borderline Case, exhibition view, Modem, Debrecen, 2022

Renáta Pintérová, Borderline Case, exhibition view, Modem, Debrecen, 2022

Renáta Pintérová, Borderline Case, detail from the installation, Modem, Debrecen, 2022

The object that says nothing and represents nothing, which symbolises the border of its own emptiness during its search for identity. A hyperobject that the mind can pass through, and that guides our imagination towards infinite borders. Border, as an empty hyperobject, turns the ideologically blurred visual representations upside down. The ontological border of min- imal totemism or primitivism is the empty identity itself. Material is the animism of identity. The empty horror vacui. The object, which is faceless, but which carries the spectator away towards infinite, limitless ideas.