The End of the Long March 

The picture The End of the Long March, based on the founded image in the family album, was taken on 19 October 1935 on my grandfather’s estate, Csákvár. Móric Esterhazy, my grandfather, was an amateur photographer. According to the documents the bull had been shot down by Archduke Joseph August, Prince of Hungary and Bohemia. The night hunt coincides with the last day of Mao Tse Tung’s “Long March”. The bluish heavens in the photograph and the stars are the positive copies of mold and tear on the negative slide.

Its abstractness, density, society-centred position and graceful playfulness are the qualities that distinguish this work in the bulk of those made in the past decade. It is a contemporary work while being genuinely related to modernism. Another merit is that this work can be simple and complex at the same time, while remaining clear and accessible. Any viewer who looks at the work with just a little attention can sense the human, social and political drama condensed into an astrological phenomenon.

Marcell Esterházy