Violent Erotica

Andrea Bordács

I hate and I love. And why do I do it? Even I don’t know, believe me.
It happens inside me, and the agony crucifies me.
[Catullus]

Seduction, passion, suffering, brutality. The images of Attila Hetesi’s print series entitled What it feels like for me shift between these notions. The boudoir milieu and intimate mood created with warm lights and hues is suddenly broken with each harsh motion. Erotica and violence simultaneously radiate from these works.

Apropos: violence. Recently topping the list of commonplaces and clichés dedicated for household and public usage. We are warned incessantly that the violent films broadcast on TV and other media incite societal brutality, that our days are dominated by aggression and coarseness, that day in day out, the vision of increasing inhumanity and barbarity of the world is projected before us. The dichotomy of the glorious past and the wretched present is nothing new – it is a cultural topos that reaches back to antiquity. (And for this reason, we might ask exactly which era it is for which we feel nostalgia.)

Meanwhile, the sociological investigations and studies provide an account of movement exactly to the contrary of public belief. (I will refer here to the two best-known volumes among the numerous publications that have appeared on the subject: Norbert Elias: The Civilising Process; and Michel Foucault: Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison.) In the history of humanity, starting with antiquity and spanning the bodily mutilations and public executions of modernity, one could enumerate the natural forms of coexistence that comprise violence and brute force. According to the conclusions of the studies mentioned, the cardinal result of the process of civilisation is the rejection of violence and aversion to it. In other words, it is not that there is more violence today, but that people have become more sensitive to it. Where it is, however, relatively accepted, even today, is in the family and intimate sphere, in particular within conflicts between the sexes; as a confirmation of this, it is our refined folk “wisdom” along the lines of “a beaten woman is a good woman” that is often quoted.

While the family is mystified on a communicational level, it is statistically verifiable that the number of those who fall victim to murder is much larger within the family than that of the victims of unknown perpetrators on the street. (According to the most recent numbers, in Hungary, on average, one woman dies every week as a consequence of spousal abuse.)

Lying in the background of all of this are extremely complex and contradictory emotional bonds and correlations, which Attila Hetesi insinuates in his works. Not only physical violence, but also the power struggle and the mental pressure that leaves a less visible trace form the subjects of his compositions.

Hetesi’s images are prints, which, as a result of their haziness, murkiness, possess a painterly quality. The basis of his artwork is not the found images that so often figure in contemporary art, but rather his own photos of consciously arranged – staged – film scenes. The enigmatic and obscure view is a direct consequence of the intentionally longer exposition time. The phrases in English that are legible on the images are not subordinate titles, but an integral part of the artworks, evoking the illusion of a subtitled film-frame. In their technique, these filmic still images might be related to Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills.

The determining element of these works is the subjective cutting of the image. It is always only a detail that appears from the entire scene: for example, the woman’s face is fundamentally not visible – but only her mouth; that of the man is distorted, though similarly cut. It is both the deformation and the lack of completeness in combination that heighten the aggressive impact.

The images assembled could also tell a story, albeit the sequence of the works is freely variable.

The boudoir quality and the red dress intensify the erotic impression of the staged scenes, although we never encounter naked body parts or the depiction of the sexual act in these artworks. The print for which the entire series is named, What it feels like for me, carries reminiscences of portrayals of Venus.

In Hetesi’s prints that imitate the painting and the film-frame simultaneously, the intricate web of emotions between the sexes, the conflict between the two, and the self-validation concealed within practically every human relation – the spoken or unspoken struggle for power – all come into play, indirectly.

 

Suppressed Brutality

Anikó Erdősi

“…I hate it if I am compelled to take myself seriously, when no one else does.
I hate people who stop on the escalator and are transported. …
I hate the demagogy associated with the suburbs. …"
 [Mathieu Kassovitz]

At first glance, Attila Hetesi’s computer prints evoke the frames of a dozen cheap thrillers. Street showdowns, the everyday of the mafia, violence. The familiar visual language of Tarantino, with quotations from the tense atmosphere of Kassovitz’s film, recording the outbursts of smouldering aggression. Taking a closer look, it becomes clear that the action takes place in Budapest and that these are not real life situations. We are witness to played-out renderings of violence and make-believe crimes. Furthermore, from the staged scenes, we see only snatched snapshots, some typical movements and positions. As if they were just stills from an un-shot film. There is no connecting storyline – just scuffling, redolent of the atmosphere of intimidation, and that too, comes through some strange filter, cloudy and from afar. The time in-between the snapshots is involuntarily filled in our imaginations with the frames of the pervasive and hyper-realistically depicted cold-blooded scenes of films we have seen before.
These images, however, are more subdued, more muted and not at all obtrusive. The movements are obtuse, the imitation undeniable and the perfectly executed pictures hang, protected, on the walls of a gallery. There, where we go to pass time, for inspiration, for intellectual or mental exercise, distancing ourselves from the images that intrude upon our daily life. The suppressed brutality of Hetesi’s pictures in this milieu propound a different approach to the interpretation of violence. The usual abuses developed to condemn the necessarily bad, popularly disparaged, yet watched media-violence would trickle off these images, but in their case, one should not even try. But then what should we do with them? What are they good for? What remains of violence, in such a reserved milieu? The distance offers a chance for thinking that deviates from the customary
with respect to violence.
Who among us would not be able to continue the lines quoted above? We are all violent, impatient and furious at times, generally giving vent in words, with flashing threats of violent action. The fact that not everyone deals with it so easily is something we learn from the news.  But it provides food for thought: why is it that we watch, night after night, fact or fiction, but always brutal stories on the television? Why don’t we turn off the set instead and read a book? And even there, why do we find just more violence? Because evidently there is a demand for it. Because violence is not a discovery of the media – there is nothing new under the sun in the media – violence is a part of life. We don’t have to like it, but simply  to accept that violence is an integral part of our lives, while the pain that accompanies it is utterly. Milan Kundera writes that man is the creature who experiences pain three times. Once, when s/he imagines it; twice, when s/he actually goes through it; and for the third time, when s/he recalls it in her/his memories – the same as with violence. Violence is an instinctual mental and physical demand: we can only control its form and measure.
The pseudo-filmshots do not carry any media criticism of violence, nor of anything else. On the contrary, the artist appropriates the visual form of the wide-screen cinema film, its colour spectrum, the figures, locations and lighting of film shoots, and even the language in his picture-titles. The pictures much rather cast a light on human relations, just as in another series, which portrays the rough and tender scenes of a woman and a man. Albeit the participants of the street fight are male without exception, the constant player here too is the weaker figure who suffers the aggression. The essence and origin of violence is the demand for the clarification of power relations. In this, we can once again recognise the origins of our everyday lesser and greater battles.
Hetesi might have gone hunting in the urban night, in search of real life scenes, but then he would be no different than a news reporter or photojournalist. Instead, he directs the scenes condemned ad nauseam and he also undertakes to disclose to us the contingencies of the performance. His images lack a drive for sensationalism, a savage brutality. He does not repeat the gestures of action films, but employs them, imitates them. Utilising the vocabulary of fine arts, these pictures reconsider their subject matter from different angles, including even the possibility of tenderness in brutality.
These images raise questions, rather than making assertions. And while the pictures are formally extraordinarily au courant, the questions they put forth are enduring. The up-to-date technique and their type of filmic vision also define a precise era. The subject matter, on the other hand – the fulfilled or repressed violence concealed in every act – is topical in every human time.

 

All images on this website are copyright 1992-2017 Attila Hetesi and may not be reproduced without written permission of the artist.