Istvan Kemény: The opening of Poetry Analysis

(the finalised version of the speech delivered in Nádor Gallery, Pécs, on 9^th September 2021)

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

In his childhood, forty-odd years ago, poet Imre Wirth read a book that was old even that time – the Wizard of the Rocky Mountains (A Sziklás Hegyek varázslója) written by Sándor Deszkáss Borvendég (White Elk). Imre Wirth re-read the book several times. He was unable to ever forget it, and the life and character of White Elk always intrigued him. Those of a Hungarian Indian! This spring he finally organised an exhibition on the Hungarians playing Indians. Because there have been Hungarian Indians, even tribes of Hungarian Indian since the first half of the 20^th century. People who regularly left their towns and cities and camped in the Bakony Mountains, in the Danube Bend, or other regions of the country, living the “life of Indians” the way they imagined that here in Hungary. This world of Hungarian Indians was a strange, closed, and secret realm with players also strange and perhaps somewhat even obsessed. Imre Wirth investigated them perhaps obsessively for years and found those still alive, found documents, obtained objects – a canoe, a tepee – and all these things are now exhibited in Petőfi Literary Museum.

The reason I can stand here now (I will also tell you some other reasons) is that it was me who told Kinga Ráthonyi about all this and showed her the anthology too – the Last Indian Book (Az utolsó indiánkönyv) – that was published this spring as part of the Hungarian Indian exhibition. In it, 79 Hungarian poets and writers (including my humble self) define what the word Indian means to them. I think, without the Hungarian Indian enactors we would see some completely different material here. I do not think it could be more beautiful at all but it would be definitely different, and without the Indian anthology the title of this exhibition could not have been Poetry Analysis. These wonderful, tiny tepees, which meet the visitor strolling among the 33 statuettes, could definitely not stand here like refrains popping up in a poem. For a long time I have already known what I got completely certain about here: Kinga Ráthonyi created a new genre: the china poetry. Of course, objects made of china have always been poetically poem-like, ranging from song-like rococo or pseudo-rococo figurines to festive and ode-like, Herend-style tableware; however, as far as I know never have any of them been labelled as poems. Then Kinga came and created this genre and has been working in this field for years. Her previous exhibitions also consisted of china poems thus each of them can be regarded as a book of china poetry, however, since she entitled this exhibition Poetry Analysis, I dare say that from now on the term china poem is alive, is legal, and this is exactly how the statuettes by Kinga Ráthonyi can be labelled.

For me the substance of a poem is made by someone’s stating (yelling out, elaborating, shouting out, crying out) something and combining (comparing, identifying, amalgamating) things that others would consider incompatible. The poems say THIS IS IT. The poet states, yells out, cries out that THIS IS IT. Now THIS IS IT! This is precisely what Kinga Ráthonyi’s china poems do. Matching the nature of a silent material they state and cry about things rather than yell out although – just see for yourselves – there is a massive dark path of red and black across this room: the She Devil. And there are the half-melted, half-collapsed figurines that were fired that way. China is a hellish material in itself: it goes across the kiln and thus even when cold it indicates through its very existence that hell is not far away and a yell is close. And between the two rooms there is that menacing Indian headdress. It is entitled Dragon hill: headdress for suicidal Indians. The word Indian conveys the word “tragedy” as well …

Nevertheless, most of the statuettes exhibited here comprise not dark but elegiac poetry. A lake, reflections in a puddle, and various waters: rippling china waters, china surfs, a greenish china lake with a golden boat. The concentric waves of remorse made from china. The art of Kinga Ráthonyi even has its own hydrography.

But it has subtitles as well: poems and texts written on the china poems. There are lines by János Pilinszky, Jim Morrison, Attila József, and from Psyche by Sándor Weöres … and also by authors like Péter Nádas and Murakami Haruki, who can also be regarded as poets in the broader sense of the word. When you stop at a statuette, you look at it and read the text on it. Then you take a second look at the entire thing from a little farther away. And meanwhile a tricky thing happens to you: the statuette begins to analyse the poem for you, written on itself. It does the analysis with itself, through its own shape. Through its “statuetteness”. Through its colours. The statuette adds itself to the poem written on it. Then you suddenly realise that you also analyse the china statuette by analysing the poem on it. By the time you could realise how complex this is, the process inside you has simply been over. This is what these statuettes are capable of. As if they were even able to think while they can “only” connect to your brain. Moreover, sometimes they seem to use even your sense of humour.

And this is when we arrive at a protagonist because there is one: the Dotty Girl. She wears a red dress with white polka dots and is recognisable from afar. She is one of the protagonists of Kinga Ráthonyi, a lyrical ego made of china. She was present at previous exhibitions, solitary standing or sitting on the statuettes: she was part of them and she was not, and it was not loneliness but the joy of EXISTING and ROAMING FREE, which she radiated. She is not here though. I mean she is, of course, present. But she is in hiding. Her red dress and white polka dots are all over the place. She can only be seen as painted on a statuette. But anything that is red here – it is Her.

The Dotty Girl is a child; therefore she brings childhood with her everywhere. Yet she is not a child at all. She gets everywhere because she is a fairy-tale character. A fairy tale character is not a child. A fairy tale character understands everything. She is a child because she notices everything and is an adult as she can see everything. When I look at her dots, I smile. When I spot a dotty Japanese man or a dotty fox in her dress, the sight makes me laugh. All these are her, the Dotty Girl. In this exhibition, she got a fellow traveller: a little boy. Wearing a pith helmet. At first sight, it seems to be childhood nostalgia. No, it is not. But yes, it is. And something else too. I will not launch a china-poetry analysis. I would rather tell you what is in the other room.

In the other room, you can see 120 china poems: sixty boxes and sixty hearts made of china and arranged into pairs: one heart on each box. The china boxes constitute a labyrinth. A spiral labyrinth in which you can roam only inwards. Or outwards. And there are words written on the boxes. But by the time you realise the difficulty of all this it has already happened inside you just like that. And I am the one who knows where the words on the boxes come from. That is why I am standing here.

Because I happened to be the one who first heard of Knight Dulcinea and her deeds. It is also me, from whom Kinga Ráthonyi heard of Knight Dulcinea. I showed her the poems about the deeds of Knight Dulcinea. And now the words painted on the china boxes over there are from these poems. Knight Dulcinea is a knight-errant similar to Don Quixote, who sips tea in his bed at home, reads cowardly, in a hypochondriac way. Instead of him, a girl in a rusty iron dress wanders. A wandering girl: Dulcinea Aldonza Lorenzo, who has left her native village. This wonderful exhibition might be somewhat different without my Knight Dulcinea but it is certain that my Knight Dulcinea could not have even been born if not for the Dotty Girl of Kinga Ráthonyi.

And now let’s return to the poetry analysis. Because now everything and everybody around us are deeply involved in analysing. We, visitors, analyse, the exhibits also analyse, even the space, this amazing space of Nádor Gallery with its barren concrete walls revealing the reinforcing bars, the unrealistically clear height and its world-like spaciousness, it also analyses. As though it was space itself doing the analysis while digesting the artefacts exhibited inside it, with its world-like slowness. If you have a chance, please come back later alone and look around: you will definitively feel that feeling. It will be a terrifying sensation but it will be good at the same time.

Let us analyse. What does the entire exhibition tell us in its two rooms? The answer: THIS is THAT.

THIS room here is for the Indians, and THAT is for the knights-errant.

THIS: THAT.

Playing Indians is re-enacting knights-errant. Being a knight-errant is an obsession. Obsession equals Hungarian Indians. Hungarian Indians: White elk. White Elk: Don Quixote. Don Quixote: Nobility. Nobility: freedom. Freedom: poetry. Poetry: china statuettes. China statuettes: Kinga Ráthonyi. Kinga Ráthonyi: poet.

Istvan Kemény