Ilona Németh: Eastern Sugar

Publisher: © Slovenské centrum vizuálnych umení, Kunsthalle Bratislava, Bratislava 2018

Editor: Katarína Trnovská

Text Authors: © Elena Akácsová, Eva Andrejčáková, Eva Čobejová, Miroslav Eliáš, Maja and Reuben Fowkes, Krisztina Hunya, Katarína Karafová, Ilona Németh, Jana Németh, Emily Verla Bovino, Nina Vrbanová

Translations: Anna Antalová, John Minahane, Martina Stoláriková

Proofreading: Daniel Hall

Photographs: © Andras Á. Cséfalvay (A.Á.CS.), Ema Lančaričová (E.L.), Ilona Németh (I.N.), József Rosta (J.R.), Adam Šakový (A.Š.), Olja Triaška Stefanović (O.T.S.)

Videos: © Cukru production, Katarína Karafová, Martin Vronský

Graphic Design: Eva Šimovičová

ISBN: 978-80-972754-3-3

Published as electronic catalogue in November 2018.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, for any purpose, without obtaining the prior written permission from the copyright owners.

Ilona Németh: Eastern Sugar is a publication produced on the occasion of the eponymous exhibition, which was held in Kunsthalle Bratislava from April to July 2018. This bilingual publication offers a complete archive and comprehensive documentation of a project on an extraordinarily ambitious scale, by the prominent Slovak artist Ilona Németh. Achieved in collaboration with a wider collective of artists and architects, the site-specific exhibition project was curated by the KHB director Nina Vrbanová and the Leipzig-based art historian Krisztina Hunya. Ilona Németh’s work thematised, explored and critically reflected on the moving story of the Slovak sugar factories.

The artist’s focus on history and the present day is exceptionally humane and socially involved. Her exhibition reconstructs memory through a fundamental human activity, which is work. The name of a particular foreign investor (which as one of many in the early post-communist period entered the Central European sugar manufacturing market) has been taken for the title of the exhibition and catalogue. Ironically and metaphorically, this points to one of the key themes of the project, “the selling-off of our values”.  

The electronic catalogue comprises texts by the curators Nina Vrbanová and Krisztina Hunye (notes on the work of the invited guests, internationally respected artists Jeremy Deller, Harun Farocki, Lonnie van Brummelen & Siebren de Haan), leading British theoreticians Maja and Reuben Fowkes, museologist Miroslav Eliáš, etc. Also highlighted is a comprehensive video and photo documentation of the “non-portable” Eastern Sugar project (videos are included in the catalogue in the form of active links), and also the publication of important reviews and texts, many of them published after the exhibition closed (reviews: Emily Verla Bovino – artmargins.com; Jana Németh – Denník N; interviews: Eva Čobejová, Elena Akáscová – .týždeň; Eva Andrejčáková – denník SME etc.). Here the aim was to present a certain plurality of views on the given theme, which has the potential for further research situated in selected countries of Europe (2020 – 2022). The publication is available in the Slovak and English languages.