Public Blood Donation, Műcsarnok, 4 April

Visitors are welcomed to the Mi Vida exhibition by Alicia Framis’s work, Remix Buildings-Bloodsushibank. At first sight, it is an apparatus perfectly suitable for the donation of blood. And not only at first sight…

With their donation, the artists want to call attention to a message also promulgated by the exhibition: contemporary artists and art are as responsible for the matters of life and society as anyone else.

Participating donors: Participating donors: the visual artist Róza El-Hassan, the actress Andrea Fullajtár, the writer Krisztián Grecsó, the poetess Orsolya Karafiáth, the musician Tibor Kiss (Quimby), the musician András Lovasi (Kispál és a Borz), the film director György Pálfi

Dates of public blood giving, when we expect our visitors:
April 4, Saturday, 11am–5pm
May 1, Friday, 11am–5pm
May 13, Thursday, 2pm–7pm

Alicia Framis’s works and performances reflect on the fear that arises from loneliness and the lack of interpersonal communication. An exhibition rarely offers more than passive contemplation, seldom do we get a chance to face our own fears and experience the artist’s vision and the idea that prompted the creation of the art object or installation.

Most of us associate blood giving with sterile environments and the lack of personal contact, we deem it a necessary but undesirable act.

Framis now seeks to elicit entirely different feelings, and her installation turns the cold, impersonal space of blood donation into a warm, attractive environment, imbued with a common element of her recent work, an air of luxury.

The piece recreates an improbable hospital room enclosed by padded walls, and seats covered with white bandages – a comfortable setting that invites conversation while waiting. The centrepiece is a round white platform where blood is donated. The platform is divided by a wall on which a portrait of the artist is hung.

Like in the signs on the walls of medical centres, the artist is dressed in a nurse’s uniform and presses a finger against her lips to request silence. Standing opposite this platform is a sushi bar, which gives the act of donating blood a delicate, fragile connotation, contrasting with the sandwich people normally receive after giving blood.

The installation brings the food we need to stay alive into a metaphoric relation with the blood that saves others’ lives."

Source: Műcsarnok

Address: 1146 Budapest, Dózsa György u. 37.

Transport: Millenniumi Underground – Hősök tere megálló (Heroes’ Square) stop / Trolley bus: 75, 79 / Bus: 20, 30, 105