Ágnes Eperjesi's 2018-2019 project critiques gender violence through performance and installation

In October 2018, artist Ágnes Eperjesi performed 'You Should Feel Honored' at the Hungarian National Gallery in Budapest, covering Gyula Pauer's bronze sculpture of Csilla Molnár with a red drape. Molnár, who won Hungary's first postwar beauty pageant in 1985, was life-cast nude by Pauer in 1985 and died by suicide in 1986. Eperjesi's performance, documented in photographs, responded to the global Me Too Movement and explored the exploitative casting process where models were touched without consent. In May 2019, she presented a two-part exhibition at Budapest's Fészek Gallery, including archival materials and the installation 'Pathos and Critique' featuring a fiery red 3D-printed head of Molnár's sculpture. The project examined the gender politics of Hungary's neo-avant-garde, highlighting Pauer's controversial role and the lack of feminist discourse. Eperjesi organized a June 2019 roundtable discussing body politics in Hungarian art, noting the patriarchal structures persisting from the Kádár regime to today's Orbán government. Her work connected Molnár's 1980s exploitation to contemporary gender inequality in Hungary, where domestic violence remains unaddressed and the Istanbul Convention is unratified. The project critiqued institutions like the Hungarian National Gallery for reluctance to engage and art historians for ignoring ethical dimensions in Pauer's work.