Párhuzamos Kronológiák / Parallel Chronologies

The exhibition Parallel Chronologies presents at in one of its venues Labor two documentary exhibitions dealing with neo-avant-garde art from Belgrade and Novi Sad. The prelom kolektiv from Belgrade has chosen the SKC, the Student Cultural Center in Belgrade in the 70s as a case study and beside studying several significant events that happened there, they looked at the center’s socio-political context at that time. Kuda.org new media center has collected the most important documents of the 1960s and 70s neo-avant-garde in Novi Sad. The third section of the exhibition presents art events from the 60s-70s Hungary at two venues (Labor and Krétakör Bázis).

In the first room of Labor three important chronologies are displayed on the wall, thereby making it possible to make spatial comparisons of the lists of events. The point of departure for most of the later chronologies is Dóra Maurer’s splendidly illustrated list of events published in the catalogue of an exhibition presenting Hungarian artists in Germany in 1980[1]. Maurer herself traveled a lot and working as a one-person institution started to record events and exhibitions as a contemporary. Another important chronology of this period in Hungary was written in a museum outside of the capital. Márta Kovalovszky and Péter Kovács, two art historians of the István Király Museum in Székesfehérvár, initiated a series of exhibitions in the 1960s with the title Hungarian Art in the 20^th Century. In this series, they described and presented different periods according to the trends that defined them. The exhibitions were accompanied by catalogues which featured the precise chronology and bibliography of the given period. In this Székesfehérvár series three exhibitions organized in the 1980s dealt with the 60s and 70s: The Years of Unfolding Around 1960 (1983), Old and New Avant-garde, 1967-1975 (1987), and The End of the Avant-garde, 1975-1980 (1989) - which also created their own system of periodisation. After 1989 the neo-avantgarde period came into focus again and the Hungarian National Gallery organized the exhibition The Sixties – New Trends in Hungarian Visual Art (1991). We have put on display the chronologically ordered “Documents” chapter of the exhibition catalogue, issued in conjunction with a show. Our endeavour was to collect all the so far published chronologies of the Hungarian art of the period, from the list of events featured on the backside of a 1972 Balatonboglár invitation leaflet to publications from the 2000s. All these can be viewed in a file.

The “research-base” allows visitors to study similar projects and researches on the period on a computer (Portable Intelligence Increase Museum by IPUT, East Art Map, Gábor Dobos’ Photo Archives, Little Warsaw: Only Artists, etc)The informal networks of the protagonists of the art world that laid the foundations for international events are represented by a 1975 and a 1976 Art Diary borrowed from László Beke. Beke was one of persons who suggested Giancarlo Politi, the publisher Hungarian artists and critics to be included in list. We also refer to another important network project entitled NET that was initiated by Polish artist-gallerist Jaroslaw Kozlowski and the art critic Andrzej Kostolowski.

At the exhibition opening in Labor we reconstructed an action that originally happened in 1972 in Balatonboglár, in György Galántai’s Chapel Studio. The action entitled “Today You Open the Exhibition – Responsibility-taking action” was organized by György Galántai and István Haraszty, whose recollections reveal not only that they wanted to call attention to the role of the public sphere, visitors viewing exhibitions without official permissions, but that they themselves interpreted their own action in different directions. Visitors viewing the documents of art events from the 60s-70s today have to face a different kind of responsibility, that of the (mediated) memory and the critical approach to (art)history. At the same time, to be able to interpret and reconstruct the events and their context from the documents available it is indispensable to take into consideration those social and political circumstances that are highlighted by this action through the issue of responsibility.

The exhibition continues at Krétakör Bázis and presents narratives that can be discerned from the documents and afterlife of the art events of the 60s/70s in the form of case studies selected from the chronologies and the exhibitions suggested by art professionals we asked through our inquiry.
The primary criterion for selecting which events and related documentation to present was based on looking at why some events gain significance as soon as they happen, making them the starting points of anecdotes and legends, while others are quickly forgotten or can only become interpretable when seen from a later context. We were interested to find out what public roles and possibilities for appearance the era’s political and social climate provided for progressive art, what connections it had with international trends and how the events defined the relation between art and the public. To this end, we put in parallel the activity of the various generations as well as events that were held at official (public), professional and ad hoc exhibition venues, such as culture houses or clubs, or ones that never passed the planning stage, or were banned. We ourselves have been working in a space which has never been used for exhibitions, and which, as a result, provides an opportunity for approaching the exhibition genre from a wider perspective.
Selecting the exhibitions from this period we were considering events, which in one way or another shaped or renewed the genre exhibition, reinterpreting the exhibition space in relation to the art object or the event character of a show, just to name some of these. As we are also looking for an answer to the questions of how an exhibition becomes an event and what can happen at an exhibition, we endeavoured to explore the connections between shows that present works of art in a static manner and various actionist and performative practices.

"The first Hungarian happening”

The Lunch (in Memoriam Batu Khan) is the point of departure of most Hungarian and international chronologies that deal with neo-avantgarde art. It was given the title “the First Hungarian Happening” by the organizers themselves on the invitation card, and was taken up by a review published in a weekly magazine right after the event. The concept of the “happening”, as a dangerous and “insane” manifestation of disorder coming from the Western world made its appearance also in the columns of humour magazines. Prior to the event, its young organisers, Gábor Altorjay and Tamás Szentjóby expressed themselves primarily by metaphysical poetry. Tamás Szentjóby saw in the genre of happening an opportunity to capture the physical world.
The happening took place in a cellar in the presence of 50-60 viewers as well as photo and film cameras. Nevertheless, it managed to make a great impact. The secret police also filed a report on it, which explains why the critical evaluation of the genre was pushed to the periphery of public awareness in the following years and why recollections of the event often contradicted each other without any objective reference point.

Self-historisation and self-documentation

The Iparterv exhibitions of 1968-69 introduced a generation with a new perspective, most of whom, in accordance with the artistic trends of the 60s, were engaged in pop art, informel painting and sculpture.

The first exhibition, which lasted only few days, took place in December 1968 at the main hall of the Iparterv State Architectural Office . The exhibited works were selected by Péter Sinkovits, a young art historian, and György Jovánovics, a young artist just returning from Paris. Making references to the 1968 Documenta and presenting new artistic manifestations in the context of international trends were important points of consideration. At the same location, Tamás Szentjóby had already been planning actions in the summer, which were realised with the participation of Miklós Erdély and László Méhes in November, a month prior the exhibition. A year later the organiser and the exhibitors came together for an exhibition at the same venue with the involvement of four more artists (the participants of the 1968 actions, András Baranyay, and János Major).

For the first exhibition invitation, poster and a small catalogue were printed; for the 1969 show they released a publication with the title Document only a year later, which was printed illegally in the print shop of the company. This publication served as an example in the education of secret services officers for samizdat publications with ideologically dangerous content. The cover featured a group photo shot on the terrace of László Lakner’s studio: the picture communicates a group identity that had been created by the exhibition.

The legend of Iparterv came into existence at the moment of its happening.
In 1980, the group of artists exhibited together at the same venue again, and then an English-Hungarian publication was issued containing a number of studies and also documentation of not only the exhibitions but the actions that happened in November 1968. In this book, the authors themselves write about the Iparterv legend. In December 1988, immediately preceding the political transition, a three-part Hommage á Iparterv series was launched at the Fészek Gallery, which conjured up the legend in an altered context.

Looking at the the afterlife of Iparterv, we also call to mind a contemporary approach: Little Warsaw, a Hungarian artist group in its work entitled Crew Expandable (2007, Platán Gallery) addresses some projects by the artist János Major (1934-2008), who also exhibited at the Iparterv exhibitions, but created an idiosyncratic oeuvre, very distinct from the others in the “group”. Little Warsaw represented in their work the group photo series known from various Iparterv publications thus placing János Major among the members of the “great generation”.

Self-financed exhibitions

Between the 1950s and the 1980s, all public exhibitions had to get permission from the responsible authorities – on the basis of a precise list of artworks – and were fully financed by state institutions. As early as the 60s, there was an idea (initiated by György Aczél, Minister of Culture) that exhibitions which the cultural policy did not wish to support of ideological reasons should still be provided a venue. This exhibition space was the Fényes Adolf Hall, where artists that represented completely different trends were featured. One example in 1960 was Béla Kondor (1931-1972) a poet and artist, who, while not following avant-garde trends, also did not comply with the requirements of the socialist-realist style. Lajos Kassák’s (avant-garde poet and visual artist; 1887– 1967) self-financed exhibition that took place in the year of his death at this same venue was an emblematic event. He could not have exhibited his constructivist works anywhere else. At the same time, it was absurd and embarrassing to expect an artist - who was a pioneer of Leftist art movements before the World War II. and was revered by generations - to pay himself all the costs of his exhibition. At the end of the 1960s, in the Fényes Adolf Hall, a number of “Iparterv” artists exhibited their works, including György Jovánovics and István Nádler in 1970, at whose exhibition opening a fictive radio broadcast was played on a tape recorder ironically reflecting on the limited publicity of their work.

The Exhibition as artwork

The appearance of the first self-organised group exhibitions held at unofficial venues coincided with the first shows that, instead of displaying objects positioned in space, presented projects and environments that incorporated the entire exhibition space as part of the work. Aside from the Fényes Adolf Hall designated for displaying “tolerated” art[2], such works could only be exhibited in out-of-the-way cultural centres and rural exhibition spaces.

György Jovánovics’ work exhibited in 1970 in the Fényes Adolf Hall consisted of a plaster-cast that reproduced the ground plan of the exhibition space through the surface imprint of a table covered by cloth. His starting point to realise this work was that the exhibition space did not contain any right angle, and had nothing to do with a minimalist white cube exhibition space. Preparing, exhibiting and storing the sculpture also meant a challenge on the practical and organisational level. After the exhibition, Jovánovics transported the work to Miklós Erdély’s garden, where the sculpture became the setting for a number of spontaneous events, some of which were documented on photographs.

The Pseudo show, creating a fictive sculptural space-illusion within the exhibition space by Gyula Pauer was exhibited for two days in the same year at a cultural centre. As evidenced by the documentary film made by János Gulyás about the exhibition visitors had to reinterpret their ideas not only about sculpture but also about exhibitions too. The art historian and critic, László Beke, also asked in the film called the work the first successful environment in Hungary.

At her 1974 show in Székesfehérvár, Erzsébet Schaár (1908-1975), a representative of the older generation always following her individual pathways, exhibited an installation of sculptures, showing a street that filled and recomposed the entire exhibition space. Her work, in the spirit of modernism, created a national pantheon featuring the most important cultural figures, also escorted by mysterious female figures. The piece was later displayed in Lucerne and then, finally, in Pécs, where the temporal styrofoam components of the sculptures were replaced with pieces made of concrete.

Independent venue

György Galántai, a freshly graduated visual artist, found an abandoned chapel in Balatonboglár at the lake Balaton in 1966 and decided to open a studio and exhibition space in the empty building. Following a long and testing procedure of acquiring permission, the first exhibition opened in 1970. The initially more traditional exhibitions – which also allowed room for “tolerated” trends – gradually gave way to experimental, performative and time based events as well as to projects articulating institutional critique and political statements. When acquiring permissions of authorities for more and more non-conformist exhibitions and events became a hopeless endeavour, Galántai gave up the official procedure and renamed the Chapel Gallery to Chapel Studio.

The 1972 program series entitled Direct Week, according to the concept formulated in the call for participation, wished to establish direct contact with the audience instead of exhibiting art objects Thus, it based its approach on either the personal presence of the artists and or new media as well as incorporating into the program the realisation of an avant-garde festival that had been banned a few months earlier. It was at this time that Tamás Szentjóby presented his action entitled Autotherapy for Punishment Prevention: with a bucket over his head he “punished” himself for hours while also capacitating the audience to interrogate him. In 2005, the artist group Little Warsaw asked Tamás Szentjóby to repeat the action which originally had been recorded on photographs and film fragments, and which, this time was documented in the form of a video.[3] In Galántai’s Chapel Studio, there was also an opportunity for progressive artists from the Eastern bloc to meet and exhibit their works together (without permission). In 1972, in an event organised by László Beke, Czech and Slovak artists collaborated with their Hungarian colleagues. Through a ritual tearing up of a magazine article on Hungarian soldiers who aided in crushing the 1968 Prague revolution and through handshakes captured in the form of a photo montage, the exhibition also directly reflected on the trauma that had occurred in the relationship of the two countries.
In the summer of 1973, exceeding the traditional framework of the exhibition, presentations of significant conceptual works, performative and collaborative actions as well as performances by representatives of underground theatre organically succeeded one another creating a continuous “festival” of progressive art.
In 1973, the instances of objections raised by the authorities against the Chapel Studio were increasing from all directions. Finally, the progressive artists were “evicted”. In the so called “Leaving action” György Galántai left the chapel with a prop from an underground theatre action: a sign reading “Friendly treatment”.

Flux and concert

From the end of the 60s, more flux concerts were organised in cultural centres and clubs by Tamás Szentjóby. In these venues exhibitions or happenings were often presented as side-events in association with literary programs and pop music concerts. In the case of these actions, direct contact with the audience was a fundamental element. In addition, the concert genre also provided Hungarian fluxus artists with the opportunity to perform international fluxus pieces. These events could only be held in locations that were not in the focus of attention of the authorities. The flux concert that was organised in 1969 at the cultural centre of Pesterzsébet was shut down after the first intermission. The 1973 flux concert planned for the University Stage was banned after the program guides had already been printed. This large-scale program was reconstructed after 20 years, when a multimedia documentation was created of the event. Another important action, Tamás Szentjóby’s 1972 The Greatest Disobedience Number also took place in the break of a pop concert in a college club.

Farewell exhibition

At the end of 1975, Tamás Szentjóby was expelled from the country, as his artistic activities had been deemed overly provocative by the cultural authorities. Prior to his departure, he organised an exhibition collecting his works produced between 1966 and 1975 for his own retrospective so to say at the Club of Young Artists, which was one of the important semi-public venues of that period, which mostly tolerated progressive events. In this exhibition he presented his concrete poems, conceptual objects and the documentation of his actions. Later Szentjóby also performed a lecture, which he considered an artistic genre, in which he defined his own activity as non-art art, in other words, as a program that reacted to reality in a direct manner.

Invisible female positions

The same venue housed the exhibition of Orsolya Drozdik, a member of the post-conceptualist artist group Rózsa Circle, which as a new generation, who inherited the language of conceptual art but were also looking for new ways to become professional artists. Drozdik’s action reflected on the male-centred perspective of traditional art education. In addition to the consciously assumed female position, the critique on art history also indicates a fresh approach, which the new postmodern generation – following the classical and neo-avantgarde generations – made its own. Drozdik undertook for a week the basic activities associated with traditional art education: she drew female nudes, and this action as an exhibition was opened daily by various male artists and art historians. At the same time, the exhibition space could not be accessed directly; the audience could only observe it through a gauze curtain. In 1978, Orsolya Drozdik immigrated to the Netherlands, and then to New York, where her instinctive approach of a woman artist was unfolded in line with feminist theories.

Collective art

In 1976-77, creativity exercises led by Dóra Maurer and Miklós Erdély, visual artists were held at the Ganz Mávag Cultural Centre, which, instead of the individual, artwork centred creative process, introduced an alternative educational model that was based on community experiences and the deconstruction of traditional art studies/education. The study circle later continued under a different name and in a new location, finally transforming into the INDIGO group, which made appearances at a number of exhibitions at the end of the 1970s. Dóra Maurer documented the workshops and then in the 80s she edited the footage into thematic sections at the Balázs Béla Studio producing a film entitled Creativity-Visuality.

Slide panorama

By way of her international connections, Dóra Maurer has not only collected the documentation of contemporary events in chronologies, but also has held a number of lectures in Western Europe and has prepared and distributed publications about the works of progressive Hungarian artists. The activities of many Hungarian artists were presented to the foreign public not through exhibitions but by the means of these slide shows accompanying her lectures.

[1] Künstler aus Ungarn, Kunsthalle Wilhelmshaven, 1980.

[2] According to the cultural policy introduced in Hungary by György Aczél in the late 60s cultural production was classified into three categories: Supported, Tolerated, and Prohibited

[3] Little Warsaw: Reconstruction – Isolation exercise - Cyrill & Method, 2005