Commissioned Memory

1965 | Absence

József Péri’s copper urn represents an absence, in multiple ways. Its original function was that of a container of a memorial candle, a materialized form of commemoration of the victims at the 1965 exhibition.

In its current state, it is a torso: the wrought iron stand of the urn has been lost. It therefore also refers to another absence: to the works of art that, like its stand, have been destroyed or left in Auschwitz. For reasons unknown, István Martsa’s sculpture was left behind, while Imre Varga’s monumental wrought iron space-dividing grid, consisting of nails, 12 meters long in total and 2.4 meters high, was also lost without a trace, left probably behind because of its size and primarily functional nature.

Placed in the main axis of the current exhibition, this incomplete artifact symbolizes the unfortunate fate of the works and alludes to the once commissioned but soon obscured memory of the Holocaust.