Párhuzamos Kronológiák / Parallel Chronologies

In 1970, I was 13, in 1971 14, in 1972 15, etc., which means that either I should choose the path of trying to name with my mind of today 10 events, where I was not present, nor did I even hear of them – but only 10-15 years later, or I could recount what influenced me as an adolescent, or what touched me then.
I decline the former, while for the latter, I cannot compress it into the events of 10 exhibitions.
Thus, I will try to put together something of an outline: Making an impact on me, and I think many other Budapest adolescents of my age, who came to their consciousness between the 1960s and 70s, were:
rock film (and in part, TV) and the illustrated weekly and monthly magazines, and from the early 1970s, books.
Within rock, I mean not only the music, but also, e.g., the visual imagery, offered by the record covers, and within film, starting with the Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night, within 2-3 years, it was possible to see Antonioni’s Blow-Up, Zabriskie Point, and then through the films of Bergman, Fellini, Tarkovsky and Jancsó, up till Jean Vigo, and beyond; in music, from the Beatles and the Stones up till Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Miles Davis, Bartók, Kurtág, Syrius, Kex and Rákfogó.
By way of the weeklies and magazines, by the time I was in the higher levels of elementary school, I took note of Vajda, Kassák, and through the volumes of the library of the classics of art, in 1971-72 of Duchamp.
If I remember well, in 1973-74, I saw in a museum exhibition – at the Petőfi Literary Museum – Kassák, and at the Műcsarnok/Kunsthalle, Endre Bálint (about whom I had read in the volume of Csoóri-Kósa: Forradás [Scar], and whose texts I had read in the memorial volume for Lajos Vajda, and in his own book, entitled Hazugságok naplója [Diary of Lies]), and in 1971-72 we saw the exhibition of György Román in Fényes Adolf Hall, where we also met him. It was only in about 1973 that we came upon Kassák’s books, but it was also then that the first Ginsberg was published, while Camus and Kafka also came into the picture, as well as, e.g., Ágnes Heller, and then Mérei, Konrád, etc.
We first read about Szentjóby, and Gilbert & George, in the magazine Művészet (Art), thanks to László Beke, who informed on the Paris Biennial (of 1973-74), while we saw Jozef Szajna’s exhibition and performance at the Ernst Museum. We read about Miklós Erdély through the public correspondence of Gyula Rózsa and Béla Kondor in the periodical, Kritika (Critique), where however, he was not mentioned by name.
In a word, I might say that in fact, it was only in the second half of the 70s that we began to become acquainted with the Hungarian neo-avant-garde; i.e., we discovered it after the fact, when StAuby, Péter Halász, Baksa-Soós, Lakner and Perneczky emigrated, and with time there was samizdat, and the new wave, in the framework of which Hajas-Vető emerged, just as Vető-Zuzu, Erdély, Bódy, and StAuby, but this is already a story that commenced with the turn of the 70s-80s with Mozgó Világ, Magyar Műhely (magazines), and the exhibitions and concerts of the period.
I think that it is nearly impossible to analyse the history of the 1960s-70s without a knowledge of the cultural policy / art-sociological aspects of the era, so please don’t fall into the trap of ignoring them!! At the same time – and I recognise this – it is not easy because the cultural policy / art-sociological aspects were also changed almost from month to month: for instance, the illustrated weekly, Tükör (Mirror) informed about Szentjóby’s first happenings, which means that I saw this at the age of 10 or 11, though of course I didn’t yet know what to make of it, and years passed until I received new information, even about the genre itself.
On the other hand: while – and e.g. – no further information came through the weekly, Tükör, because it was banned, and in general this cultural policy began to prevail increasingly in the Hungarian cultural public with prohibitions from 1971-72. For instance, the weekly youth and monthly cultural magazines from Yugoslavia in Hungarian could still enter the country since the work of the Hungarian censors was not uniform. There was that which could go through here, while there it could not, while nevertheless the event itself could take place, but so much on the periphery, that it didn’t reach those who could be interested in.
Though what didn’t reach us directly, or immediately through the press, did reach us a few years later when finally complete suppression reigned on it, e.g., through private conversations.
Namely, in the case of our generation (also), the general problem was that, even if from the outset we began to instinctively be attracted to contemporary culture due to the various cultural policy prohibitions of the epoch, we could not necessarily access everything – to the contrary! It was already some kind of achievement that we in Budapest could view the modern classics, for instance, such as Kassák, Endre Bálint and György Román, and read their contemporaries, Ginsberg and Konrád, or hear György Kurtág at the Zeneakadémia (Academy of Music), or Syrius.