Párhuzamos Kronológiák / Parallel Chronologies

1.
I think it must have been in 1999 when I was preparing for the Textile Faculty of the Hungarian Academy of Applied Arts, and my art teacher (Marica Sipos, the director of the art school and a sculptor-designer), though I cannot remember now why, but she considered it important and ordered us all to go to the Műcsarnok/Kunsthalle to see the Miklós Erdély retrospective exhibition, so that we would know what conceptual art was. I can remember what an enormous experience this exhibition was for me! I completely surprised myself by how interested I was, and I returned to see the exhibition several times(!), taking notes. I can remember that later I spoke with a number of people who had also returned to see the show several times, including someone who later became an architect.
Years later at the Könyvudvar (discount bookstore) near Astoria, where there is a little bookshop in the left-hand corner, where one can purchase all kinds of books at a massive discount, I found a book by Miklós Erdély among all kinds of dubious cookbooks and feng shui, and now I don’t even know what the title was, but it was a small volume that was a selection of his writings. I think it cost about 20 forints... it’s a bit sad that it was considered to have such a market value.
2.
I don’t know whether the fact that even today women rarely can be found in determinant positions is due to the fact that there was no feminist movement then in Hungary. Or was there? I know almost NOTHING about the women artists of the period...
During the couple of years that I studied at home, I did not encounter a single feminist art approach, discourse, reflection, critique - nothing. And I went to most of the discussions, symposia, screenings, open days, etc., organised by the Intermedia Department of the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts.
The fact that even today the scene is so macho (also) in Hungary must be due also to the role played by the lack of a feminist movement and subsequent tradition.
When I moved to Austria, it was such a relief (I’m not sure if this is the right word) to me to see older women as role models, who taught at university, or who worked at magazines, or who wrote. Or simply women artists, who thought and lived in an emancipated way.
3.
Then I remember speaking a lot with Éva Molnár when I helped Gitte Villesen to find a subject in Hungary for a video work. We made recordings of Éva, who showed us old photos and told us countless stories about the life of the Fészek Artist Club, in the 1960s and 70s, when on a certain weekday evening the artists regularly met and discussed each other’s work, etc.
4.
I was once at a lecture of Tamás Szentjóby at the Kultiplex (a music pub), where he showed his own work, including his older works.
5.
My father once recounted to me that when they were teenagers, their parents strictly forbade them in the summer to get off the train in the vicinity of Balatonboglár, when they were on their way to the other part of the Balaton, to the family’s summer resort...
6.
An interesting project with similar topic: Sylvia Kolbowski: An Inadequate History of Conceptual Art