Memorabilia

© Gábor Arion Kudász - Image from the Memorabilia photography project © Gábor Arion Kudász - Porcelain and glass plates in the order they were stored in her kitchen. © Gábor Arion Kudász - A small mirror from her bathroom. The function of this mirror was double. It covered a missing tile too. View all images ↓
View all images ↓
Report issue

Painter Emese Kudász died on 22 November, 2010.

Painter Emese Kudász died on 22 November, 2010. In the years that followed, her son Gábor Arion Kudász catalogued her entire estate, so as to establish a guide to the workings of memory. The artistic research disrupted the order she had created, something that surrounded her and was distinctively her own. Through the cracks of this disrupted order, hidden aspects of her personality emerged, together with a previously unrealized coherence among her objects; it is no longer possible to tell whether these had existed before or were only the result of the intervention. The structure of the estate itself encouraged the creation of collections as it comprises very individual, occasionally downright extravagant, corpuses forming the backbone of an exhibition and the accompanying book: hundreds of four-leaved clovers pressed between newspaper, wardrobe items kept by seasons and colors, bookshelves, printing blocks of an aged catalogue and endless personal objects, messages from the grave.

The complete work contains hundreds of such 'collections'.

The order of things – according to Memorabilia:

a) Personal effects, mostly personal items that bear the warmth of the significant person’s hand, keep her scent, their surface was worn by her gaze. On their own, these objects are often without value and interest; they are not even individual, do not directly refer to their owner — yet an assemblage of mementoes of this kind makes the taste, habits, lifestyle and spirit of the subject of remembrance recognizable.

b) Things considered suitable to be tokens of remembrance, and marked as such. Both the rememberer and the subject of remembrance have agreed to elevate them above similar objects.

c) Real memorabilia, objects for remembrance, mementoes. Articles produced in multiple copies with the express function of serving as triggers of memory, which can be identified with the subject of memory only through an image or name.

© Gábor Arion Kudász - Image from the Memorabilia photography project
i

Bricks hanging on an apple tree in my mothers garden after her death. She bent the branches downwards during the winter moths.

© Gábor Arion Kudász - Porcelain and glass plates in the order they were stored in her kitchen.
i

Porcelain and glass plates in the order they were stored in her kitchen.

© Gábor Arion Kudász - A small mirror from her bathroom. The function of this mirror was double. It covered a missing tile too.
i

A small mirror from her bathroom. The function of this mirror was double. It covered a missing tile too.

© Gábor Arion Kudász - Image from the Memorabilia photography project
i

Measurements of my mothers body. She wrote 'Measurements of the selfish mom. My darling, we fade away rather quickly. I will be 65 on the 1st of February 2008.'

© Gábor Arion Kudász - Family photographs not suited for the family album. They are categorized and complete with full content information.
i

Family photographs not suited for the family album. They are categorized and complete with full content information.

© Gábor Arion Kudász - Image from the Memorabilia photography project
i

The grave of Emese Kudász. ABFRA, the abbreviation carved in the wooden column stands for: Under the hope of joyful resurrection.

© Gábor Arion Kudász - The swing in her garden after the funeral.
i

The swing in her garden after the funeral.

© Gábor Arion Kudász - Image from the Memorabilia photography project
i

The cake box. A white paper box containing the urn of her remains. The urn is officially sealed and marked with an identification number.

© Gábor Arion Kudász - The surgical widening of the heart valve invented by my grandfather as described in his book.
i

The surgical widening of the heart valve invented by my grandfather as described in his book.

© Gábor Arion Kudász - Image from the Memorabilia photography project
i

My mother collected many things. These are the crystal glasses she got from her mother. Most of them broke on a new years eve when my father and I had a pillow fight.

© Gábor Arion Kudász - Silk underwear in a drawer.
i

Silk underwear in a drawer.

© Gábor Arion Kudász - Image from the Memorabilia photography project
i

A bust of her father, a well-known surgeon. It was ordered by the society of heart surgeons for a commemoration ceremony. She did not give consent to the installation of the sculpture, because it did not represent its model well enough.

© Gábor Arion Kudász - Image from the Memorabilia photography project
i

A photograph of my mothers hands and her sketch of her own hand interlocking with my fathers hands. The drawing was found in her phonebook.

© Gábor Arion Kudász - A cast of my face
i

A cast of my face

© Gábor Arion Kudász - A plastic bag of plum seeds. My mother saved these seeds for later use to contaminate the neighboring lawn.
i

A plastic bag of plum seeds. My mother saved these seeds for later use to contaminate the neighboring lawn.

© Gábor Arion Kudász - Image from the Memorabilia photography project
i

A floor map of her home with scaled down cardboard furniture. She drew hundreds of different renovation plans throughout the years, but never did any of them.

© Gábor Arion Kudász - The last portrait of Emese Kudász.
i

The last portrait of Emese Kudász.