2003 » Norway » National Exhibition
Curator: | Svein MOEN |
Norway
In Dunaújváros, a city about an hour's drivo from Budapest, in the late autumn of 1997, Olav Myrtvedt and I are walking along tho broad long stroots whoro only an occasional car is passing, and whenever we see a shop we look for cat figures, for my littlo daughter Is collecting thoso and on my various journeys I try to bring one or several back home to her, and we walk and walk, Olav and I, and no matter where wo look thoro isn't a glimpse of a cat figure to see, and we walk for a long time, we're maybo ovon boginning to got a bit tired and we haven't seen as much as a trace of a cat figure yet and then we arrive at a market whore thoy'ro soiling all sorts of things, cheap plastic toys, second hand clothes, newer stockings, balloons, and also what we're looking for, cat figures. Wo find a cat figure. Wo buy it. In the cold morning, but with a rising sun, we walk further along the stroots of Dunaújváros, a city built around a steelworks which until not so long ago was called Stalinváros, The New Stalin City, which was tho first socialist city in Hungary and eventually, due to history's turning, had its name changed to Dunaújváros, The Now City by tho Danube, whoro tonight, in the city's theatre, A gyermek, The Child, which Olav has done the scenography to and I have wiitton, is going to have its opening night. We are walking through the straight streets of the city, and crossing the squares. A fow years earlier we also did a production together, in Bergen that time, it was a play called The Name, which was stagod at Don Nationalo Scono, but at that time, in Bergen, it was spring, and the production was for the annual International Festival. And earlier this autumn we were in Stavanger, where Rogaland Teater produced the play Nightsongs. at that time it was early autumn, almost summer, and now we're walking the streets of Dunaújváros and it's Christmas soon and we come to yot another market, a moat market where most of the goods seem to be sold out, but still there is a stall with knick-knacks and other figures, among them a cat with plastic flowers on its back, bright but soft blue-coloured. Olav picks it up and suggests that I buy that one, too. I buy that one. too. And then we walk on. and in a shop window we see yet another cat, plastic this time, and that one too has to bo bought, or so says Olav. And then we come to another marked, and even there is a cat figure to be bought. And we walk on. to yet another market, yet another cat figure. In the end there are cats everywhere. I have never seen as many cat figures in my life as there in Dunaújváros. first not a single one to be seen and then they're all over the place and when we return to the quite run down before this socialist boarding house where one lives, I feel much calmer than when I left it even though it now is only a few hours left to the opening night and I now am carrying a plastic bag with a multitude of cat figures in it, among them a bright but soft blue one with plastic flowers put as in a dug-out flowerpot on its back and around her neck a small necklace of quite small red Christmas pellets is hanging.