I had a lot more time to read during the quarantine. I wanted to create and was looking for a topic that has something to do with the US and Hungary as well. I started working with the Chelsea again and realized it would be the perfect theme for the show.
The whole exhibition is permeated by the atmosphere of passing. The New York I loved has changed a lot lately. An era is over, and an empire has lost its leadership, who knows for how long. This exhibition is also a farewell to the ideas of my youth.
The Chelsea Hotel has completely transformed. The last utopian island in Manhattan has also been washed away by profit mongers. This is what happens to galleries. Only industrial-sized commercial galleries can afford Manhattan. The rest are being pushed out to Brooklyn, Queens and even farther from the center. Chelsea was a bubbling, glowing, exciting art community, which is now only petrified lava.
The party is over, and you have to wake up from your dreams and say goodbye to the hopes nourished from legends. That’s why the show is titled; “Checkout.”
The former residents of the hotel. With my portraits, I didn’t just want to show the faces of those who lived there. I used contemporary photos of them, which I drastically transformed to reflect what I feel and what I think.
As I dove into the different life paths, the question arose as to whether there could be any such community like the Chelsea Hotel today or if in the age of the internet these kinds of personal networks would become completely useless.
Since most of the characters in the portraits are no longer living, the exhibition also has the atmosphere of a funeral procession. Is it possible to say goodbye to the immortals? Black and white portraits, pictures of dead people, all of whom were ruined and faded in my memories. With systematic self-destruction, many of them died at a young age. In the meantime, they formed a long-lasting piece of art. They became immortal through their work.
The list is entirely subjective. There are people who are little known at home, but I felt it was important to introduce them to my audience. There are those who, although only lived at the Chelsea for a short time, mean a lot to me, so there was no question that I would choose them.
Jackson Pollock is one of the greatest artists of our time. He was discovered by Peggy Guggenheim who gave him a reception at the Chelsea Hotel to introduce him to wealthy patrons. The evening didn’t quite go as imagined. After the intoxicated Pollock, instead of introducing his works of art to the guests, vomited on the carpet. Someone from the reception suggested to the waiter to cut that piece out from the carpet because it would be worth a lot one day.
I am still undecided about whether or not a person needs to leave his homeland to become a true artist. The hotel was the first refuge for many brave immigrant artists. Stanley believed in them, helping them with housing, ensuring their survival and for many, international fame.
Milos Forman emigrated from Czechoslovakia. He lived in the hotel for one dollar per day, after the failure of his first movie. If Stanley didn’t support him, he might not have had a chance to make his film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which brought him long-awaited success.
Yves Klein, who created his own international blue color, was also a resident of the hotel. In 1961, frustrated by failure and poverty, he wrote the Chelsea Hotel Manifesto. My black and white exhibition is a little homage to Klein’s monochrome paintings.
I also chose to include a portrait related to Hungary since Péter Halász, the genius of alternative theater, also lived at the Chelsea Hotel. In the 1960s, in the absence of an actual theater, he began to perform in the rooms of private homes. The remaining footage of these performances was mostly recorded by the Hungarian intelligence service. The communist state was very much afraid of art that they didn’t understand. Upon arriving in the US, the company stayed at the hotel, where Stanley advised them to check out the building a few meters away. This is how the iconic Squat Theater, which is still considered one of the most important cultural institutions in New York, became their home. Sadly, the building is no longer standing. I had the good fortune to meet Péter Halász in person in the show “NOW,” which was a defining moment of my life.
There was no question that Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe would appear on one of my portraits. Patti took a feverishly sick friend on her back to the hotel since they had nowhere to go. Stanley welcomed them and gave them a chance to thrive in that special community and become an artist.
The love of Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller also fascinated me. I imagined what would have happened if the eternal survivor, Miller, died first and Monroe was bringing flowers to his grave. This portrait was the one chosen for the invitation card of the exhibition.
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