Little Warsaw is the pseudonym for the Hungarian artists András Gálik and Bálint Havas, who have been investigating hegemonic historiography in their work since 1999. They concern themselves with historical insignia and attempt to question and renegotiate the significance of symbols and objects. Often, they change a historical objectʼs location – like the wall inscription on an historical building, which is assigned to another place for a few weeks – or they supplement important artifacts as if they were incomplete objects, like the bust of the Egyptian queen Nefertiti, which they fitted with a new body for a few hours in 2003. This always puts into effect a contextual transfer or cultural conversion that apprehends the antique relic in a contemporary way or implies the central importance of marginalia.

It is a similar situation with Bulletproof Vest: a piece of body armor that plays a rather small role in day-to-day life has been molded, cast in plaster and cement, and placed on a pedestal. In this form it is no longer a simple illustration of an object, but rather is suddenly in the middle of a particular historical tradition – the depiction of authoritarian representation, more specifically the busts of famous military commanders that are shown, as a symbol of leadership and power, with similar breastplates or armor. Because the human body is missing in Bulletproof Vest, it remains a monument to anonymous violence and a portrait of nameless aggression.

Markus Schinwald, 2015 (translation: Virginia Dellenbaugh)