age of the gnomes 2014 / co-curator
Budapest, LOFFICE Saletrom and Art Market Budapest
For Budapest Design Week 2014 and Art Market Budapest (yearly international art fair) an innovative co-working office LOFFICE and WERK Academy jointly presented a cutting-edge design project.
These two institutions originally had the intention purchasing garden gnomes as a decoration of their building’s yard. Kotka, partnering with them that time, suggested to transform these objects of kitsch into art pieces by reputed Hungarian artists, and to offer the art works for an auction on the day of the 2014 governmental elections in Hungary, under the project title ‘Age of the Gnomes!’ - as the timing of the Design Week and the Art Market matched the day of the governmental elections. Finally, each of the invited 25 participating artists received a different, already decorated, mass produced, polyresin garden gnome (height of 50-70 cm) to create their understanding of this creature.
Co-curator: Réka Kenéz. Graphic design of the project: Willem Van de Ven
