The Most Dangerous Person

research project, exhibited at OFF-Biennale Budapest

08.05.-15.06.2025

The divisive and violent systems in which we live our everyday lives are built on a visceral sense of fear. These systems ensure that there is always some suspicious group onto whom we can project the threat that looms over us. In other cases, it is the very policymakers who incite hatred against minorities that become the most frightening. In his new series of work, Gideon Horváth poses the seemingly simple question: Who, after all, is the most dangerous person?

Following the initial inquiry, the artist—stepping outside of his own milieu—engaged in dialogue with a group that is systemically stigmatized. The interviews offer a glimpse into the nearly invisible lives and daily struggles of sexual minorities living outside Budapest.

The narratives shared by working-class interviewees are especially unsettling, as they align with neither conservative frameworks nor the liberal norms often articulated in urban discourse. These radically personal microhistories, while recounting individual strategies of survival, also confront the fundamental contradictions of human existence—thus challenging polarized and ideological worldviews.

Traditionally, mass-produced porcelain figurines have romanticized rural life. Widely recognized as decorative objects in many households, they are often viewed as kitsch. In contrast, the porcelain sculptures featured in the exhibition evoke not lightness or idyll, but more complex emotions and experiences tied to the stories of the interviewees. These works do not serve as illustrations, but rather take an abstract approach, highlighting shared experiences.

The sculpture, pointing both to itself and to the viewer, provides a coded response to the central question of the project. The figure seated on the donkey in the corner is a recurring character in the interviews—the “village fool”—who teeters between shame and humor. The circle dance scene in the center, titled "This Is Not About Me," is a direct quotation from one of the interviewees, who repeats this phrase to calm themselves and confront the forces that oppress them.

The video work takes a much more direct approach, presented from the artist’s first-person perspective. A unique manifesto unfolds along the central theme of the project, while fragmented elements related to the creation of the sculptures also make an appearance.

This manifesto does not offer a definitive answer to the viewer, nor does it steer into safe waters. On the contrary: it raises further questions, provokes, and unsettles. The Most Dangerous Person begins to neutralize the stigmatized concept of danger by confronting it directly, rather than succumbing to instinctive fear.

Curatorial collaboration: Flóra Gadó, OFF-Biennale Budapest
Porcelain works: Created with professional assistance from Ábel Lakatos
Metalwork: Hanzlik Workshop
Publication design: Flóra Pálhegyi
Binding: Lilla Szántói
Typesetting: Katalin Balogh, Flóra Pálhegyi
Font: Holzhausen Antiqua – Rebeka Orosz
Translation: Jákob Horváth, Gideon Horváth
Printing: Könyvpont Printing, Digitalpress
Cinematography: András Ladocsi
Loader: Attila Ágoston
Rental: Vision Team
Laboratory work: Szilárd Szilas
Digitization: Zalán Besenyei (keskenyfilm.hu)
Colorist: Balázs Varju Tóth
Sound post-production: Rudolf Várhegyi
Photography: Dávid Biró
Thanks to: Zsófia Frazon, Tamás P. Tóth, György Mészáros, Eszter Kállay, András Vigvári, punktum.ink, Dorottya Rédai, Andor Horváth, Ildikó Enyedi, Mónika Mécs

Commissioned by OFF-Biennale Budapest and EVA International.

Supported by Longtermhandstand, Judit Reszegi.