For the forthcoming epoch for the Salamander / Ádám Ulbert
Curated by Peter Bencze
September 19 -November 15, 2020
Ena Viewing Space
Budafoki út
1111 Budapest, Hungary
Instagram: @adamulbert @enaviewingspace @everybodyneedsart
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the
artist and Everybody Needs Art
Photographer: Aron Weber
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"...New
cultures always start with fire regulation.
The salamander
became the general thermostat for this novel swampland.
Although this reconciliation
paid by the eucharistic act
of self sacrifice. Offering the body for hosting was the salamander’s personal climate catastrophe.
He was close to
the invincible sun that gives without receiving.
The untouchable
lotus root body of the salamander became a telluric sun.
In the era when daily sacrifice is
no longer a general human routine,
the salamander holds the potential to be a new post-solar deity..."
Ádám Ulbert:
For the forthcoming epoch for the salamander (artist book,2020)
„With this piece, much like my previous works of mine, what I
am mainly interested in is how a certain natural phenomena is culturally
interpreted. How culture serves as a domesticating force over nature. And often
how this strive for domestication of nature fails. I’m curious about belief
systems, cultures and times that are dealing with the problematics of
intuition, transgression, non binary thinking, or the implosion of the
conscious anthropocentric strata. In situations where the problem of taming
nature - by nature I mean both physical and metaphysical natures - don't
succeed and creates tales instead of certainties. I find it fascinating how
often in these moments of shattered or collapsing states, our human-ness starts
to share ontology with the 'other' more-than-human entities - like animals,
plants and minerals. „
Text: Ádám Ulbert