GYÖRGY JOVÁNOVICS - “LIZA WIATHRUCK: HOLOS GRAPHOS”

Photo series, text, 1976
Collection of Hungarian National Gallery

LIZA WIATHRUC PLAYS BLIND CHESS WITH GYÖRGY JOVÁNO­VICS, AND MAKES A MOVE AFTER HER PALM SENSES THE WEAK LIGHT COMING FROM THE PERSON HIDDEN INSIDE THE AUTOMA­TON
Installation, 1979
Collection of Budapest Historical Museum / Kiscell Museum

BLACK KING WITHOUT SHADOW (FRENHOFER AT KEMPELEN)
Sculpture, plaster, 2007

György Jovánovics provided two definitions for what is his most im­portant work from the seventies, a cartoon entitled “Liza Wiathruck: Holos Graphos”, in which the photo series, developed through quick frames, is in inseparable union with the captions: the work is meant to be both a “blind manifesto on seeing,” and his own “visual peda­gogy.” In this piece, which is very complex in structure, Jovánovics created a model of cognition for “picture” and “space,” which would later find its consummation in a plaster statue that elaborated Liza's figure in three dimensions, and the idea of working out “a larger opti­cal system.” The composition, which grows out of the chief motif of the man hidden in Kempelen's chess machine – as a metaphor of art – functions as an instrument that creates meanings, while remaining “part of a larger plan.”

Text: József Mélyi