Kele, Judit: I am a Work of Art (1984)

The television footage was shot in 1984 in Judit Kele’s (1944) home, when she had been living as an art object in Paris for four years. In 1980, after divorcing her Hungarian husband, she married the Frenchman who offered the highest price for the “art object” she was auctioning. In 1981, after the official waiting period, she moved to Paris to live with her “owner”, where she was able to experience the life of the artwork and her relationship with the collector who owned it. Being an object of art was not without its contradictions: certain economic and interpersonal mechanisms were put into effect by means of an “exchange”. The freedom of mobility – free travel abroad – was paid for by the sacrifice of intimacy. The relationship between the art object and the collector who owned it could not be symmetrical. Judit Kele, who shared these impressions with French television viewers, also spoke about the value of the “art object” and her ambivalent emotional relationship with its owner. In the end, the agreement was terminated before the time stipulated in the contract: in 1985, Judit Kele divorced her French husband and temporarily said goodbye to the art scene in a performance (Farewell) to start a new life as a film director.

Andrea Tarczali