It would have been a pity to defect – Exhibition opening at Kincsem Palace

The ArtSommelier Team

In Event, Exhibition Posted május 13, 2022

Péter Weiler – „It would have been a pity to defect”, Exhibiton opening, Kincsem Palace, 2022

Péter Weiler’s exhibition addressed one of the most important questions in the artist’s 30-year fine-art journey from a particular perspective: Should he stay or should he go? The retrospective exhibition had no clear or determined answers, moving between doubt and certainty. The showing was displayed around the four halls lined with 40 works in oils, watercolours, giclée prints, concrete, plexiglass, even traffic signs. Almost forty works were exhibited in one of a kind location in Budapest. The Kincsem neo-renaissance palace once belonged to the world-famous Kincsem racehorse’s owner.

It would have been a pity to defect… as we hear in the famous Hungarian YouTube meme video. Peter Weiler’s new exhibition focuses on the most critical question of his 30 years old artistic carrier.

Stay or go?

To defect is to emigrate with the burden of lineless and isolation or stay and face loneliness and isolation. Whichever road one takes, the result is the same: fighting with ourselves. Where should we be lonely, home or aboard? In a country or the capital?

While going is an active motion, staying is a passive yet additive inverse. Weiler believes that both acts are active and consume great energy. Staying is not a lack of a decision but rather an ongoing work of acceptance. Contemplating the decision can halt our life in a feeling of insecurity. Probably because there is never a final answer to this question, just the echo of what if…? Weiler believes that this dilemma is a source of emotional instability in Eastern Europe that can never be resolved.

A retrospective exhibition is not a destination with crystalized decisions reached. This show instead reflects an artistic process balancing between doubt and sureness.

Almost forty works were exhibited in one of a kind location in Budapest. The Kincsem neo-renaissance palace once belonged to the world-famous Kincsem racehorse’s owner. This is probably the last exhibition when the building was still in its raw beauty, eroded by the times and the changing political systems.
The palace reflects the splendor of a bygone era, like Weiler’s works dealing with change from past to present. The spectator enters an isolated historic space where the contemporary works resonate with the haunting past and today’s chaos.

In the four halls, the works were mixed in medium: oil, aquarelle, giclée, altered traffic signs, ready-mades, cement, plexiglass, NFT, and the overarching humor of the artist. It is mixed as our developing inner feelings about the topic.