Back in 2000, Hungary celebrated the turn of the Millennium with an exhibition of contemporary Hungarian sculpture in the artificial pond behind Heroes Square that doubles as an ice-skating rink in the winter. More than a decade on, to mark the Hungarian presidency of the European Union, two dozen artists from across Europe have again been invited to show their most waterproof works in the atmospheric setting of the City Park lake. In addition to the practical question of how to adapt contemporary artworks to pond life, the artists in the show face the deeper challenge of how to rise above the banality of decorative sculpture and state-sponsored Europhilia to make a meaningful artistic statement.

A three-person curatorial team backed by the Museum of Fine Arts, who in a rare foray into contemporary art are the main organisers of the exhibition, have succeeded in encouraging many in this flotilla of European artists to come up with new and exciting projects. For Tower, British artist Heather Allen will build a vertical structure out of the lake to serve as a platform for her trade-mark tiny bronze figures, symbolizing the search for knowledge and creating an interesting counterpoint to the central column on Heroes’ Square. In the only work that directly reacts to the shared communist past of Eastern Europe, Polish provocateur Krzysztof Bednarski gives us a fountain made from portraits of Karl Marx executed in bright colours, complete with water streaming like revolutionary thought out of the great man’s mouth.

The green and polluted outdoor setting of City Park has inspired a number of artists to tackle ecological themes in innovative ways. German artist Josef Bernhardt aims to draw attention to the intolerance of city folk towards our feathered friends through an installation entitled Waiting for Birds which consists of several hundred nesting holes on posts. Romanian conceptual artist Daniel Knorr gives a symbolic reminder of the reality of climate change by inserting a snowman into the summer setting - a gesture which ironically would not be out of place here during the winter when the lake reverts to its primary role as a skating rink.  Ilona Németh also pursues an environmental theme by making two floating ‘guerrilla’ gardens, which are to be tended by a pair of volunteer horticulturalists over the summer.   

The host nation is also well represented, with Roza El Hassan, aware of the power politics of nearby Heroes’ Square, deciding to opt for light and ephemeral materials. Her wickerwork exclamation mark rising up from the water was made together with Gypsy basket weavers from a camp on the river Tisza and is designed to symbolise the voice of victims and the downtrodden. Among the other Hungarian sculptures floating on the lake, Zénó Kelemen’s Möbius Strip incorporates sunken LED lamps to draw attention to the work after dark, while Balázs Kicsiny’s typically weird installation, Late Departure, Early Arrival, has four human figures sitting in a welded-together hybrid vehicle, apparently waiting for their supper.

One of the more conceptual interventions in the show is Slovak artist Erik Binder’s Waiting, which involves locating an old-fashioned park bench complete with moody fin-de-siecle lighting in the middle of the pond, its position depriving the object of its usual functionality. Via Lewandowsky will put an even more incongruous piece of street architecture into the centre of the lake, namely a portable toilet, from which ‘cosmic’ sounds can be dimly heard. Hopefully this will not be located too close to Finnish artist Tea Mäkipää’s more romantic-sounding installation, Atlantis, in which the corner of a submerged house is just visible above the waterline.

Exhibitions of public art always have the ambition of opening up an understanding of contemporary expression to the widest possible audience, and this show is no exception. The advantage of an outdoor setting is that there are no walls or fences to hinder access, and the exhibition can be pleasurably surveyed from the bridge over the lake and also from the paths around it. The best way to view the show, and an enjoyable activity in its own right, is to avail yourself of one of the exhibition rowing-boats, which are available every day from ten in the morning till ten at night. The only remaining question is what will the ducks make of it all?

Art on the Lake, Budapest 2011