PAUER, Gyula
Sculptor, conceptual and performance artist, scenic designer
(Budapest, 28th, February, 1941 – )
The second half of the 1950’s: the Municipal Fine Arts Decorative Sculpturing High School of Budapest, master: Alajos de Battista; 1960-1962/1963: the co-worker of the Executing Studio of the Fine Arts Foundation, after which Pauer worked as an executor for the Hungarian Filmstudio until 1966. From 1972 to 1978 he worked as the stage designer of the Gergely Csiky Theater of Kaposvár; from 1978 he was the stage designer of the National Theatre of Hungary, and of the József Katona Szinház from 1982. From 1985 onwards he worked as a freelance artist. Between 1990 and 1998 he was a teacher of the Scenic Faculty of the College of Fine Arts of Budapest, then from 1994 of the College of Motion Picture and Theatrical Arts located in Budapest. 1968: Smalt Symposium of Bonyhád; 1970 and 1971: Sculpturing Symposium of Villány; 1973: the 3rd Beispiel Eisenstadt, International Burgenland Painting Weeks in Eisenstadt (A); 1978: the Creative Sculpturing Camp of Nagyatád; 1969: A member of the SZÜRENON group. Since 1992 he has been a member of the Merse Szinyei Society (president between 1994 and 2000); from 1994 onwards he was the founding member and vice-president of the Hungarian Sculpturing Society; 1996: the regular member of the Széchenyi Literary and Arts Academy. During the course of the 1970’s he repeatedly won the award of critics for his stage designs; 1993: Munkácsy Award; 1999: Wreathed Sculpturing Award; 2005: Kossuth Award. The basic scope and theme of the art of Pauer was and is to this day defined by the tricks of the trade acquired during the first half of the 1960’s. Among these is the usage of plaster and the technique of disguising first appeared with autonomic pretension in his sculptures prepared between 1963 and 1966. Pauer introduced this series of painted plaster plastics, resembling metallic sculptures, which constitute the product of his experimentation with the possible forms within the scope of figural sculpturing, in 1966 at an individual exhibition. Then in 1985 he presented the again, as a new work of art, under the title of Egy láda szobor /A box of sculptures/. The reduction of the human figure, it’s structuring and transformation (for instance into a chair), as well as the question of one or multiple perspective, slowly lead Paeur towards abstract sculpturing. He participated with large-scale plaster sculptures at the exhibitions of first the Progresszív törekvésű festők és szobrászok /Painters and Sculptors with Progressive Ambitions/ then the Szürenon Group. László Beke used the term “bio-mechanic” for the description of these works of Pauer. The complex interaction of the plastic forms produced the observed virtual movement. Pauer exchanged this virtual effect for true movement in his work entitled Biomobil exhibited in 1969: the nonfigurative plastic begins to move at the push of a button. Contemporaneously with his experimentation with formal and visual effects he was able to disguise the forms of his plastic figures: he secured the image of a different form onto the surface of the utilized base form. Pauer introduced these works at the Balatonboglári Kápolna tárlatok /Chapel exhibitions of Balatonboglár/ in the summer of 1970, then in October of the same year, at the shooting of a film, in relation to which he introduced a new art form, which he labeled “Pseudo-art”, which was discovered by certain critics in relation to a number of his earlier works. In the Első Pszeudo Manifesztum /First Pseudo Manifesto/ Pauer developed his ideas primarily in relation to sculpturing, and specified the artistic roots of Pseudo in minimal art and op art, while Pseudo contained sociological and philosophical context, which Pauer however only dealt with in a tautological manner. The manifesto constitutes the entertaining and spectacular character of the traditional illusionist technique, and a number of works (e.g.: Marx-Lenin, 1971) contained direct political overtone, due to which Pauer was amongst the banned artists of the 1970’s era of Hungary. He developed the idea of Pseudo further in monumental (Villányi pszeudorelief /Pseudo relief of Villány/, 1971), and conceptual (Halál-projekt /Death Project/, 1972) works, photographs, and film designs. He participated primarily at the group exhibitions of Hungarian avant-garde groups in both Hungary and abroad. From 1972 he was the stage and costume designer of the Gergely Csiky Theatre of Kaposvár, where he utilized his pseudo-idea, on the “already pseudo” stage. With his plans and designs, which greatly influenced the director, he played an important role in the development of the reform, taking place in the physiognomy of Hungarian theatre at the time. The monumental open-air composition entitled Tüntetőtábla-erdő (Demonstrational sign forest) consisting of 131 inscribed boards, formalized at the Nagyatádi Szobrász Alkotótelepen /Sculpturing Creative Camp of Nagyatád/ in 1978 was destroyed by the authorities. His other work entitled A Fa emlékműve (Pszeudo fa) /The memorial of the tree (Pseudo tree)/ prepared thereat, consisting of a gigantic tree trunk, with the image of the removed bark pasted onto it, was also destroyed. Pauer prepared the reconstruction of the Tüntetőtábla-erdő (Demonstrational sign forest) for the inaugural exhibition of the academy held in 1996. The first pathos formulas were interconnected with these two works of his prepared in Nagyatád, which contained the possible physical and emotional states one can reach through the preparation and viewing of the works, that is, the performance-like presentation of these reactions through a series of photographs. His third piece prepared in Nagyatád was the sculpture entitled Maya, which interconnected the Pseudo idea with Hindu Philosophy. The pseudo performances which were organized between 1978 and 1981, held at different cultural centers as well as at the flat of Pauer, the so called Zöld Színpad /Green Stage/, came about from the actions, the reciting of scripts and poems, improvisational acts, as well as pathos-formulas, which were organized around the figure of the “pseudo”-goddess. Pauer moved back to the capital, Budapest, in 1978, where he worked from there on. From 1985 onwards, within the framework of often larger projects, he effectuated his sculpturing ideas with the cooperation of co-workers in many cases. The plaster casts of the human body, primarily the female figure, and the experiment of interconnecting these with the pseudo idea constituted the central idea of these works (Szépségakció /Beauty-sale/, series of skin plastics). Between 1986 and 1987, together with Zoltán Érmezei and János Rauschenberger, he produced the figure and oeuvre of the landscape painter Puci Péry. Then between 1990 and 1991 Pauer prepared the Torinói lepel szobra /Sculptor of the Veil of Torino/, which he presented to the Vatican as a gift. In this particular case he turned the pseudo idea around: instead of placing it back onto the original, or onto a different form, that is the skin plaster-case of an object or body, he placed it onto a plaster-case, the producing of which has not been explained to this very day. Pauer prepared the body of a three dimensional sculpture from this plaster. Since 1989 he has participated in a number of sculpturing tenders, and a number of his public statues have been erected. Since 1996 he has been preparing so called “disguised canvases”, consisting of paintings and small plastics, often objects with conceptual backgrounds. He actively participated in the operation of a number of artistic groups and the exhibitions held by these. Pauer also teaches and holds art lectures (Egyszemélyes Szinház /One-man theatre/) Since 1985 he has been working primarily with the scenic design of motion pictures, and he himself was also an actor in a number of these films: 1984: Tanítványok /Pupils/, 1987: Eldorádó (director: Bereményi G.); 1993: Szürkület (director: Fehér Gy.); 1994: Sátántangó (director: Tarr B.).
