Judit Lilla Molnár’s exhibition at Budapest Gallery is a bit like a playground for adults. Commitment and responsibility, experimentation and risk inherent in play infiltrate the world of work, but precisely the lightness and openness of play are caught at the fence formed by regulations. The matrix of compulsions, inner necessities, possibilities, and rules shapes the plotting board of our everyday lives on which we play as we try to balance labour and rest, the private and the public, obedience and experimentation. As we strive to conform to innumerable aspects of life, there is always some room for freedom, sometimes as passages and capillaries, other times as infinitely wide fields.

The installations inspired by playgrounds but shaped by the experience of strenuous effort adapt to the architectural setting of the venue and engage in a dialogue with it. The seesaw echoes the wooden rafters of the ceiling, the small triangles lining up like the building blocks of the everyday mimic the brick structure of the floor, the momentum of the slide is contained by the surrounding walls. Just as the playground is a small fenced area of freedom enclosed in a dense urban setting, so does the exhibition articulate the possibilities and constraints of the space.

Judit Lilla Molnár is the winner of the Inside Express Award of Balkon Contemporay Art Magazin, Budapest Gallery and the Studio of Young Artists’ Association.