Beáta Veszely
From Lifetime
(The Wonderful World
of the Horse Race)
Mixed media installation (painted wall, text), 900 x 600 cm, 1995-96

(About Horses) on Whose Backs I Place (Imaginary) Pillows The "weighing of the odds" in the turf papers can be regarded as free verse. These texts are intended to describe the condition of the horses before the race and their chances of winning with the fewest possible words and in the simplest possible language. These are radical texts, which look back on more than 100 years of tradition. Since the emergence of horseracing, their purpose and form has not changed much. The short pieces of information printed recently in Hungarian Turf show yet another characteristic: they present the horses as having more or less equal chances (...). These texts, romantic and poetic, emphasise the future in the present, and are generated from the fear of the unknown. I would like to paint the wall green, the peculiar green of Budapest betting offices during the seventies, of which a few still exist. Also important is the perishability of the work, its installational character and immateriality, the fact that after the closing of the exhibition, only a documentation of the work will remain. Back to Current Coordinates