Polyfunctional Woman

"If artistic self-fulfilment is your need, it's hard to restrict it because of motherhood, for example. Without work, you lose your essence. Reconciling these needs is a shared responsibility of the woman, the whole family and society in general."

Red velvet bed is the artist's first sound and interactive installation. It was created at a time when Ilona Németh – initially a painter – began to gravitate towards creating objects and art environments combining natural materials with technical elements.

Instead of upholstery buttons, holes for tiny built-in speakers cover the bed. The sounds of laughter, sighing, crying or singing lullabies, which the artist has described as "feelings without words", refer to the different roles of women in the family and in society. Beyond the immediate emotional impact, the work also provides a critical commentary on the widespread notion of female emancipation, which often entails the expectation that women take care of the home, children and the needs of men alongside their careers.

Listening to the sounds of the bed and feeling its soft surface forces a person to assume bodily positions that express intimacy, slowing down or vulnerability. Audience interactions have marked the work in various ways during its travels around the world – in Hiroshima it was eventually "completely ripped apart" by enthusiastic spectators, and in Berlin it was violently slashed with a knife. The second version of the object is now in the collection of the Ludwig Museum in Budapest.

lab.SNG ● Text z aplikácie atlas.sng.sk pre stálu expozíciu Model: Múzeum súčasného umenia?