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In his work Open  up the Gates!, Szabolcs KissPál follows a story: an episode in the life of rabbi and cantor David Victor Tulman (DVT), who spends a few months in the Pannonhalma Abbey in the spring of 1920, in the greatest secrecy, during his escape. The details of this hiding place are described in his autobiography. The memoir is the starting point for his artistic research for the work Open the Gate, which will also include museum collections other than those of the Archabbey.
Fragments of history, artefacts and a monument: this trinity draws a possible history of DVT, a version of which we may never know the clear historical authenticity.

However, a memorial plaque in the Pannonhalma Abbey building, marked "Open up the gate!", is already on display, sustaining curiosity, commemorating a history that goes back more than a century, but leaving free fragments of history and personalities that we know very little about today and may never know.

The research and the work were on display in the exhibition Invisible Spectra (2021), a collaboration between the Ethnographic Museum's MaDok programme and the Archabbey of Pannonhalma. The plaque was installed on an interior wall of the Archabbey building in the spring of 2023. A publication with details of the work was published at the same time.

Discussion about the publication: 5 July, 2023. Ethnographic Museum

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