{"id":400005,"date":"2000-05-03T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2000-05-03T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/?p=400005"},"modified":"2000-05-03T22:00:00","modified_gmt":"2000-05-03T22:00:00","slug":"hol-van-kozep-europa-es-hol-nincs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/kritika\/hol-van-kozep-europa-es-hol-nincs\/","title":{"rendered":"Where is Central Europe, and Where is it Not?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\r\n\r\n\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Hungarian\r\nart criticism handles L\u00f3r\u00e1nd Hegyi’s newest grandiose exhibition,\r\nwhich attempts to summarize the art of the last fifty years of the indeterminable\r\nCentral European region, more or less with kid gloves. The only writing\r\nof a daringly critical tone originates in the pen of J\u00f3zsef Vadas\r\n(J\u00f3zsef Vadas: \u201eSzenzibilis panor\u00e1ma\u201d (Sensible\r\nPanorama). Magyar H\u00edrlap (Hungarian daily newspaper), Budapest,\r\n15.04.2000, p. 12.), who puts forth the following: “Just let us not believe\r\nthat this was the past half-century. With L\u00f3r\u00e1nd Hegyi’s\r\nvisionary panorama, at most, the possession of imperfect (half-past) art\r\nhas begun.”
\r\nTruly, s\/he who perchance expected more from this must have been greatly\r\ndisappointed.<\/p>\r\n

Danilo Kis compares\r\nCentral Europe especially to a sort of dragon that has been sighted by\r\nmany, though no one is able to describe how it looks. Behind this conception\r\nlies the fact that Central Europe is definable first and foremost as a\r\ncultural region upon which interferences are symptomatic. In his statement\r\ngiven to Catherine Millet, Hegyi also speaks of a multicultural region\r\n\u201estruggling with numerous identities\u201d, in which the existence\r\nof ethnic and religious minorities is constituted on the one hand of sources\r\nof conflict, and on the other, expresses itself in terms of specific creativity.\r\nIf we accept as a given that Central Europe is principally a cultural-intellectual\r\ncategory, then the inclusion of several countries in this exhibition becomes\r\nproblematic. Not to mention that within the individual countries, the\r\ncombination in some cases is, lightly put, catastrophic.<\/p>\r\n

To what am I referring?\r\nTwo hundred kilometres from Budapest, in Voivodina, the historical perception\r\nthat the southern perimeter of Europe was described by the natural border\r\ncreated by the Sava and the Danube rivers, and that that which fell south\r\nof this border belonged to the Balkans, always reigned. With full knowledge\r\nof the character study of cultures and mentalities, as well as the history,\r\nwhich is perceptible in both the lower (southern) and upper (northern)\r\nregions of this natural border, the comprehension of a moment ago may\r\nbe said to be undeniably true. If not the centre, if we consider things\r\nfrom the viewpoint of the political and cultural hegemony of Belgrade,\r\nit is obvious that Serbia can only be classified within the Central European\r\nregion thanks to its fortunate linkage with Voivodina; Montenegro and\r\nMacedonia, meanwhile, only as coupled with Serbia, leaning upon Voivodina.\r\nThus, from the cultural aspect of Yugoslavia, the singular bridging-position\r\nand drawing-role of the multinational and multicultural Voivodina is incontestable;\r\nthis is threatened in our times by the methodical annihilation of the\r\ncurrent Serbian politics with its aspirations of homogenization. It is\r\ndistressing that this political direction prevails even in terms of art\r\nhistory as represented in the exhibition entitled Aspects\/Positions.<\/p>\r\n

The exhibition catalogue\r\nwrites off (in the pejorative sense of the word) Voivodina with the following\r\nfootnote-like ascertainment: \u201ePrior to the younger generations, in\r\n1969, in Voivodina (Bosch+Bosch group from Subotica, and the KOD group,\r\nestablished in 1970 in Novi Sad), and later in Belgrade, called attention\r\nto itself\u201d. In connection with my grievance is the fact that as a\r\nresult of this Belgrade-centric mentality, an extremely characteristic\r\nsegment of Central Europe has been omitted from this show; moreover, one\r\nwhich, in the given context, would have been able to function with credible\r\nvalue, and would have even provoked a surprise within the field of the\r\nfavored Serbian authors, who are, in fact, less relevant in view of the\r\nconcept of the exhibition. Furthermore, it is not exclusively geographical\r\nsubordination, but rather concrete artistic accomplishment which results\r\nin the Central European spirituality and temperament that surges from\r\nwithin. (The intellectuality of Apsolutno, established in 1993 in Novi\r\nSad and appearing in the exhibition as an insignia, is unfortunately lacking\r\nin the specific Central European approach and sensibility, not to mention\r\nthat the group does not yet possess such a history that would merit the\r\ndisplacement of relevant artistic achievements.) Therefore, and justifiably\r\nso, the question arises as to which aspects predominated in this event:\r\ngeopolitical, or cultural-intellectual? It has come to light, in any case,\r\nthat Belgrade is closer to Central Europe than Subotica, and Macedonia,\r\ntoo, is closer than, for instance, Transylvania. What is certain: the\r\noft-emphasised multinationalism and multiculturalism has not prevailed,\r\neven intentionally, in the exhibited material of today’s Yugoslavia, as\r\nopposed to Slovakia’s. It is Hegyi’s great negligence that has allowed\r\nthis, and with this he has inevitably served current Serb politics based\r\nupon the policies of ethnic cleansing. Albeit if there is someone who\r\nshould know what happened thirty years ago in Voivodina, then by all means,\r\nHegyi should. Naturally, certain historical facts have gotten lost in\r\nthis exhibition that aims to summarize. Frankly put: the first relevant\r\nproduction of the candidate of today’s Yugoslavian region was estimated\r\nwith a one-sentence fact-like declaration.<\/p>\r\n

We should consider,\r\ntherefore, that in the case of such a slightly relative geopolitical-cultural\r\nunit as Central Europe, how much significance there is in the operative\r\nborders, and how much those regions like Voivodina and Transylvania, in\r\nview of their histories, intellectuality and cultures, still belong to\r\n(Central) Europe. Moreover: the former was always held up as an ornate\r\nEuropean example of multinationalism and multiculturalism.<\/p>\r\n

Central European\r\nart can by no means be pigeonholed within national borders; this time,\r\nhowever, those responsible did not recognise this.<\/p>\r\n

There is no justification\r\nfor the fact that its intellectual authors repeatedly stress that this\r\nretrospective does not strive for completeness. This is truly evident\r\nlikewise with respect to the exhibiting artists, if we ask ourselves whether\r\nan authoritative Polish selection is imaginable without J\u00f3zef Robakowski,\r\nRiszard Wasko, Adam Klimczak or Andrzej Jonasewski. Or, if we think in\r\nterms of tendencies: where are the Hungarian representatives of Pop Art,\r\nActionism, Fluxus or Conceptualism? Similar breaches are experienced at\r\nthe same time in the Czech material, too. But what should be truly subject\r\nto criticism is the fact that even the surveys to be read in the catalogue\r\ncannot be referred to as aspiring to completeness, as they rather reflect\r\nalmost exclusively upon the deficient exhibition material.<\/p>\r\n

It is indisputable\r\nthat this time a distorted picture of the last half-century of Central\r\nEuropean modern art has been assembled. In beholding this, nevertheless,\r\nit is also evident that the manipulations of certain professionals in\r\nart-policy put off even further the arrival of the moment when the countless\r\ninadequacies experienced here may be remedied.<\/p>\r\n

Or, by then will\r\nthere not even be a Central Europe?<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Hungarian art criticism handles L\u00f3r\u00e1nd Hegyi’s newest grandiose exhibition, which attempts to summarize the art of the last fifty years of the indeterminable Central European region, more or less with kid gloves. The only writing of a daringly critical tone originates in the pen of J\u00f3zsef Vadas (J\u00f3zsef Vadas: \u201eSzenzibilis panor\u00e1ma\u201d (Sensible Panorama). Magyar […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":630005,"parent":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-400005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kritika"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}