The reaction of the Hungarian artists to the Egiptian protest concerning the Nefertiti problem at the Venice Biennale

[anna balint]

Communiqué
On reactions to Little Warsaw’s The Body of Nefertiti


Little Warsaw, an art formation consisting of two Hungarian artists – András 
Gálik and Bálint Havas –, represents Hungary at this year’s Venice Biennale 
with their Project Nefertiti.
The artists contacted Egyptologists, art authorities in Egypt and Professor 
Dieter Wildung, director of the Berlin Charlottenburg Museum, and after months 
of negotiations the headless body created by the two Hungarian artists came to 
be united with the original bust, for a few hours on 26 May, in the 
Charlottenburg Museum. 
On 8 and 10 June several European dailies reported that Zahi Hawwas, leader of 
the Egyptian Archaeological Office protested because Nefertiti’s body was — 
naked.
The representation of the body and the personality in contemporary art is 
especially suitable for raising fundamental issues of human dignity, cultural 
traditions and art. The two Hungarian artists have always considered it of 
primary importance to further artistic communication in an unconventional 
institutional frame. They wish to mediate between isolated worlds, 
institutions, political spheres and cultures, and do so with complete respect, 
without the desire to destruct or appropriate, in order to reveal forgotten 
modes of reception, and through them, forgotten conflicts, sensitive points in 
our lives, the blind spots of our quotidian existence.
With the gesture of unification Little Warsaw took the Nefertiti bust out of 
its isolation in the museum, to emphasize its influence on contemporary 
culture. The work attests to the universal qualities of art, which stand above 
issues of ownership and cultural policy.


Zsolt Petrányi
Curator of the Hungarian Pavilion, 50th Venice Biennale