{"id":400731,"date":"2010-02-10T23:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-10T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/?p=400731"},"modified":"2010-02-10T23:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-02-10T23:00:00","slug":"a-kadar-kor-mint-kiallitasi-koncepcio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/flex\/a-kadar-kor-mint-kiallitasi-koncepcio\/","title":{"rendered":"The K\u00e1d\u00e1r Era as Exhibition Concept"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n

Hungarian contemporary art has made little effort to cope with the recent past, and the desire to remember has been even less apparent at exhibitions. The year 2009 broke the spell. Amerigo Tot – Parallel Constructions<\/I><\/a> (curated by J\u00f3zsef M\u00e9lyi) and Other Voices, Other Rooms – Attempts at Reconstruction. 50 years of Bal\u00e1zs B\u00e9la Studio<\/I> (curated by L\u00edvia P\u00e1ldi) have done exactly so. The former show has thrown light on how the cultural policy of socialist Hungary operated, how the regime made use of \u00e9migr\u00e9 artists on account of political and cultural rapprochement in the years of d\u00e9tente during the Cold War. The latter has shown the true, inside face of the same era.<\/p>\n\n

P\u00e9ter N\u00e1das gives an accurate description of the moral of peaceful coexistence following the Cold War period in his essay Our Poor, Poor Sascha Anderson<\/I>(1)<\/SUP><\/a>. The leaders of the two world orders “visited one another in their respective caves” to justify the humaneness of their regimes. “Pope Paul VI suspended his moral considerations when he received J\u00e1nos K\u00e1d\u00e1r. The queen of England invited the unsavoury Ceausescu couple to dinner…” (2)<\/SUP><\/a> describes P\u00e9ter N\u00e1das this mutual dependence in which neither party was immaculate. Following the democratic transition, the former double agent Sascha Anderson is exposed and pilloried in a new moral system replete with unresolved issues, a system where the same could befall many others, too.<\/p>\n\n

Nevertheless, I don\u2019t think the curatorial concept of the Amerigo Tot exhibition has thrown red meat to anyone or named scapegoats to give anyone the feeling of moral superiority. I rather think that the exhibition was awkward, because it showed the problematic nature of “the truth”, in which the categories of good and bad are far from as black and white as we like to think they are. The show exposed a complicated moral system of relations with Amerigo Tot in the middle, who would have been 100 years old in 2009.<\/p>\n\n

“The memorial exhibition form has had its own traditions regarding genre: it has never really broken away from the 19th century roots of the cult of the artist,” writes Katalin Sink\u00f3.(3)<\/SUP><\/a> The homage-type, cult-of-the-artist exhibitions have no room for criticism, no room for such aspects that would perhaps not put the person or the topic in the best light. When Ludwig Museum accepted the commission to arrange an exhibition on the 100th anniversary of Amerigo Tot\u2019s birth, the anniversary evoked this tradition, and they were expected to present an absolutely reverent show closely entwined with the cult of the artist.<\/p>\n\n

But neither the museum nor the curator felt like paying respects. They even approached the institution of homage-type exhibitions rather critically, thus openly declaring their attitude towards the past and the heroization of the artist. The museum did not reject the past, which was in this case a slice of the former official art policy, and refused to draw a line of demarcation between past and present. Nor did they decline the commission saying that Amerigo Tot was not interesting any more. Their attitude was practically similar to the way they had dug up Arno Breker\u2019s sculptures – like skeletons from the closet.(4)<\/SUP><\/a><\/p>\n\n

Amerigo Tot was almost instantly forgotten after his death; his heritage, including his drawings and photographs, was neither catalogued(5)<\/SUP><\/a>, nor archived in museums. This raises the question that if the entire art historian profession considered it unnecessary, why has it become so important all of a sudden? I should clarify this. Hungarian art history has yet to fulfil its obligation to provide comprehensive monographic studies about a number of oeuvres considered significant by the profession. The lack of these, however, is kept count of, and so we all know, for instance, that a fresh and thorough Lajos Vajda monograph would be in great demand. The oeuvre of Amerigo Tot does not belong in this category.<\/p>\n\n

One of the strong critical remarks about the exhibition has been that the curator “pilloried” Tot in a way that he left no space for us to truly know him, and that there was a lack of comprehensive research and knowledge of the works. Who would not agree that it would in fact be more relevant and logical to deconstruct and criticise the edifice of an in-depth monograph in order to, for instance, organise a critical exhibition based on the results? Even so, it is illusory to expect that it be possible to move on towards ever so subtle analyses after a thorough research. Illusory it is, because precisely the opposite is done in Hungary: a monograph (not necessarily thorough) is published and that oeuvre is then ticked off. In fact, the need for fulfilling the obligation is just as pressing as for moving on.<\/p>\n\n

So, the exhibition has given rise to aversion as it refrained from following the tradition of the cult of the artist and failed to “comprehensively” present the oeuvre. In the context of the museum, there have been complaints that the installation of traditional plastic and graphic artworks was devoid of “respect”. However, the exhibition was not intended to deal with autonomous works of art per se. The sculptures were not exhibited so<\/a> as to form an independent “microcosm” and allow the spectator<\/a> to move from one sculpture to another and appreciate the forms, the balances, harmonies and rare materials. For this reason, according to certain theoreticians, the installation of the sculptures was humiliating and degrading<\/a>. The presentation of the artworks suggested that we were in a sculptor\u2019s workshop, and as such, it intended to capture the process of the production as opposed to its final result.<\/p>\n\n

The concept of the exhibition was founded on the analysis of the context and the reconstruction of the life and activity of Amerigo Tot. His many-sidedness, his life, his divaricated interests, his vigour, his personality interferes with his “autonomous” works of art. The bustling life replete with adventure, world-famous friends and affairs, is everything but antipathetic. Just like a novel. But this romanticism is not in service of aggrandizement; rather, it makes Tot and the exhibition more personal, evoking people the spectator might know personally, parents or grandparents who lived through the war, and whose life is also “itself a novel”, full of anecdotes.<\/p>\n\n

The critique of a favoured artist of the Acz\u00e9l-K\u00e1d\u00e1r era – who was “brought home” from the emigration (while other artists were “persuaded” to leave at the same time), the leftist, adventurous Tot, always bearing the epithet “world famous” – triggered the disapproval of even those who would otherwise welcome the criticism of the past regime. Tot was a link between Hungary and the world, self-justification for the Socialist culture, a cog in the wheel of the divided world order.<\/p>\n\n

The exhibition has placed Amerigo Tot in this complex moral system of relations. This has made it awkward for some and intriguing for others. A strange constellation has thus ensued: many of the profession, otherwise advocating different views and approaches, have now reached consensus in one thing: they have been outraged by the exhibition. This shows that there are still no clear, black-and-white schemes, and the still water of remembering the recent past can be stirred up even in relation to an artist considered important by a minority.<\/p>\n\n

The exhibition has strongly been criticized also on account of the contemporary artists\u2019 reflections. If the exhibition fails to show how great an artist Tot was, why would it make sense to reflect on a mediocre artist? Amerigo Tot was in fact a medium of projection for contemporary artists, who reflected not on the “great artist”, but on the position, context and afterlife of the oeuvre, and in doing so, they were indirectly reflecting on the K\u00e1d\u00e1r-era and its afterlife. The entire exhibition resembled a conceptual work. Rather than dealing with the work of art itself, it reflected on its life, its circumstances and context.<\/p>\n\n

When Hans Haacke made his Manet Projekt\u201974<\/I> for a group exhibition at the Wallraff-Richartz Museum in Cologne, the subject of his analysis was not the aesthetic value of the Manet painting in the museum\u2019s collection, but its life, its owners, through which he revealed a continuity among the various systems, the way art, art collection and the museum are integral parts of politics. The Amerigo Tot exhibition was conceptual in this sense: through the oeuvre it was able to throw light on a specific aspect of the K\u00e1d\u00e1r era\u2019s art policy.<\/p>\n\n

The curator was inspired by the contemporary art practice; he even references the activity of Little Warsaw in the catalogue.(6)<\/SUP><\/a> We might add: the works of Little Warsaw also create ripples like a stone thrown into still water. The exhibition was appreciated neither by those who normally welcome the criticism of the era, nor by those who had expected the apotheosis of the artist – Amerigo Tot presented as an autonomous artist, rising above the K\u00e1d\u00e1r era. Such reactions, however, normally go along with a conceptual exhibition. Little Warsaw\u2019s and the curator\u2019s approaches are similar in yet another respect: Neither them, nor M\u00e9lyi has “object phobia” – as Edit Andr\u00e1s characterizes Little Warsaw\u2019s use of objects.(7)<\/SUP><\/a> Along with photographs, reproductions and documents<\/a>, he brought real artworks<\/a> into the exhibition space, and to this extent he diverges from “classical” contemporary art\u2019s approach.<\/p>\n\n

While Amerigo Tot was unequivocally categorized as “promoted” by the art policy of the K\u00e1d\u00e1r era, the position of Bal\u00e1zs B\u00e9la Studio adds a subtler shade to the system of the “three P-s”. The studio, which was financed by the state and yet operated without the obligation for public screening, seems to have remained outside the categories of Prohibited, Permitted and Promoted. “Velvet prison” – as P\u00e9ter Gy\u00f6rgy cited Mikl\u00f3s Haraszti\u2019s phrase, “counterculture supported by the state”.(8)<\/SUP><\/a> This phenomenon was nonexistent in other socialist countries. This is also a feature characteristic of the K\u00e1d\u00e1r era, the other face of the “humane” regime: acknowledging and incorporating opposition and subculture within specific confines, as an outlet for tension and anger.<\/p>\n\n

This exhibition was also a glance at the K\u00e1d\u00e1r era – from another point of view. These experimental, short feature and documentary films voice such sharp social criticism that some of them have practically been hidden from the public until now. “Production without the obligation for public screening” is a euphemism, as many of the films shown at the BBS exhibition would never have made it to a public screening. So, on the premise that these films were allowed to be produced although they would never have made it through the censors, there was no need for censorship.<\/p>\n\n

Something of a protest against what was not prohibited, the exhibition indicates what a mishmash the K\u00e1d\u00e1r era\u2019s categories were. Of course, the BBS filmmakers always endeavoured to push and expand the boundaries. Many of the films are like the never sent, or just closely distributed, secret letter, which was archived with care. It was also required of the exhibition organized on the 50th anniversary of Bal\u00e1zs B\u00e9la Studio to show this peculiar phenomenon along with the films.<\/p>\n\n

J\u00f3zsef M\u00e9lyi – similarly to Little Warsaw\u2019s approach – examined and created a context; L\u00edvia P\u00e1ldi explored the possibility of exhibiting an archive, a vast and extraordinary corpus, taking into account the given fact that it is impossible to exhibit the entire material. Making selections from the material, she set forth correlations and made “attempts at reconstruction”, as she put it in the subtitle.<\/p>\n\n

This curatorial concept created loci. The installation constructed of photographs evoking the spaces of the era, served to revive the atmosphere of the age, and was built around subcultures and networks to match the chosen theme. Contemporary artists reflected on the K\u00e1d\u00e1r era here, as well, evoking its locales: S\u00e1ndor Bod\u00f3 documented restaurant facilities, Gabriella Csosz\u00f3 bookshelves. According to the curatorial concept, the exhibition presented the members and players of a subcultural network. A multitude of relations can be discovered among the selected films, filmmakers and characters.<\/p>\n\n

The films selected by the curator for screening in the installation space were primarily ones that are somehow related to art, or are experimental films of visual artists. Priorities had shifted considerably during the 50 years of BBS\u2019s activity, and this gave rise to complaints about the exhibition on the part of filmmakers: it failed to present the entire activity of BBS, and, for instance, documentaries received less attention. The collateral screenings edited by Sebesty\u00e9n Kodol\u00e1nyi in the cinema space endeavoured to restore this balance.<\/p>\n\n

The aspects of contemporary art were best represented in the selection of films in the central hall of Mucsarnok\/Kunsthalle. This was the most intriguing space of the show, presenting films about women, gypsies, alternative theatres and communes. J\u00e1nos Major\u2019s graphic, just behind the booth screening Mikl\u00f3s Erd\u00e9ly\u2019s Version<\/I> (1979)(9)<\/SUP><\/a> brought anti-Semitism, one of the taboos of the age into play.<\/p>\n\n

Unveiling<\/I> (Gy\u00f6rgyi Szalai – L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Vit\u00e9zy, 1979), screened in the booth next to Version<\/I>, features a juxtaposition of counterculture and official cultural policy. The staff of the Flame Machine Works in Domb\u00f3v\u00e1r commissioned a local sculptor to make a statue in exchange for social work. The object was, however, removed by authorities on account of aesthetic aspects, and replaced by another one, juried by the Art Committee.<\/p>\n\n

The film reveals with astonishing clarity how the system retaliated uncontrolled civil activity and (not even so) free will. This highly educational story about aesthetics recalls an earlier dispute surrounding J\u00f3zsef Somogyi\u2019s sculpture of J\u00e1nos Sz\u00e1nt\u00f3 Kov\u00e1cs, which, in fact, is mentioned by a figure in the film. The act of selecting the film involved the present: Little Warsaw\u2019s Instauration<\/I> of Sz\u00e1nt\u00f3 Kov\u00e1cs, the project and its history had obviously made the curator more acutely sensitive of the issue.(10)<\/SUP><\/a> The problem of the so-called aesthetic aspects recurs when those criticizing the Amerigo Tot exhibition are concerned that the works themselves are subdued and the curator treats them disrespectfully. Bringing the aesthetic aspect to the forefront, however, would result precisely in silencing the “rest”.<\/p>\n\n

Once again, the question arises: to what extent was the activity of BBS filmmakers autonomous? For the critique of the dominant ideology, the “island of freedom” was still only functioning within the confines of the regime. Presenting subcultural networks, the show has made it possible to reconstruct a kind of genealogy of transition, the mutual dependency of official sphere and subculture. The functioning, and especially the afterlife of this subculture is a delicate subject due precisely to the mutual dependency, since it erodes the myth of heroic opposition. P\u00e9ter Gy\u00f6rgy proposed in his opening speech that “…the narrow elite public of BBS corresponded with the logic of subcultural networks – i.e., the workshop at the end of Pasar\u00e9ti Road absurdly fostered a state-supported counterculture, which is not a self-evident constellation even today.”(11)<\/SUP><\/a> The so far lacking critical analysis of this subculture might in fact have begun with this exhibition. Anna Ko\u00f3s\u2019s inadvertent subtle remark in the documentary about the Apartment Theatre<\/I> (P\u00e9ter Dobai, 1975), namely that the doors of the apartment were not quite that open, seems like a good start.<\/p>\n\n

BBS is still significant today: it is owing to its filmmakers that we can now literally face the past. It is they who provide an opportunity for reinterpreting minute gestures, insignificant details, of which perhaps only film is capable. One of the difficulties posed by an anniversary exhibition is that having seen the extraordinary films and documentary material, we are still aware that BBS is part of the same peculiar and complex situation which was the starting point for this text. It is difficult to avert the dangers of nostalgia and heroizing the past era, especially within the frame of an exhibition. Nevertheless, the study of the recent past has begun in exhibition rooms as well, and hopefully nothing will stand in its way any more.<\/p>\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n

Translated by Daniel Sipos<\/p>\n

\n

(1)<\/a> P\u00e9ter N\u00e1das: Our Poor, Poor Sascha Anderson. In: P\u00e9ter N\u00e1das: Fire and Knowledge. Fiction and Essays.<\/I> Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007.<\/p>\n

(2)<\/a> ibid.: p. 302; p. 297. [in Hungarian]<\/p>\n

(3)<\/a> Katalin Sink\u00f3: Nemzeti K\u00e9pt\u00e1r. A Magyar Nemzeti Gal\u00e9ria \u00c9vk\u00f6nyve<\/I>, 2008. [National Picture Gallery. Yearbook of the Hungarian National Gallery 2008] Vol. XXVI, No. 11. Budapest, 2009. p. 122. [in Hungarian]<\/p>\n

(4)<\/a> New Acquisitions. Rarely Seen Works<\/I><\/a>. Exhibition. Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art, 13 March – 14 June 2009.<\/p>\n

(5)<\/a> This was done by the curator during the preparation of the show, in collaboration with P\u00e9ter Nemes, who, propelled by his own interest, fanatically excavated and pursued everything that might have once had anything to do with Amerigo Tot. Meanwhile, P\u00e9ter Nemes\u2019s monograph on Amerigo Tot has been published.<\/p>\n

(6)<\/a> J\u00f3zsef M\u00e9lyi: Amerigo Tot – Parallel Constructions<\/I>. Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art, 2009. Catalogue. Also c.f. J\u00f3zsef M\u00e9lyi: A Sz\u00e1nt\u00f3 Kov\u00e1cs-\u00fcgy<\/I>. [The Sz\u00e1nt\u00f3 Kov\u00e1cs Case] \u00c9let \u00e9s Irodalom, 2005. No. 3. p. 19. [in Hungarian] <\/p>\n

(7)<\/a> Edit Andr\u00e1s: Tiltott hat\u00e1r\u00e1tl\u00e9p\u00e9sek. A Kis Vars\u00f3 \u00e9s hazai fogadtat\u00e1sa. [Illegal border crossings. Little Warsaw and its reception in Hungary.] In: Edit Andr\u00e1s: Kultur\u00e1lis \u00e1t\u00f6lt\u00f6z\u00e9s. M\u0171v\u00e9szet a szocializmus romjain.<\/I> [Cultural cross-dressing. Art on the ruins of Socialism.] Argumentum, Budapest, 2009. p. 233. [in Hungarian]<\/p>\n

(8)<\/a> P\u00e9ter Gy\u00f6rgy\u2019s opening speech<\/p>\n

(9)<\/a> a re-enactment of the (in)famous 19th century Tiszaeszl\u00e1r blood libel against the Jews<\/p>\n

(10)<\/a> For a more thorough analysis c.f. Andr\u00e1s Edit ibid. p. 227-246.<\/p>\n

(11)<\/a> P\u00e9ter Gy\u00f6rgy\u2019s opening speech<\/p>\n\n\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Hungarian contemporary art has made little effort to cope with the recent past, and the desire to remember has been even less apparent at exhibitions. The year 2009 broke the spell. Amerigo Tot – Parallel Constructions (curated by J\u00f3zsef M\u00e9lyi) and Other Voices, Other Rooms – Attempts at Reconstruction. 50 years of Bal\u00e1zs B\u00e9la […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":630678,"parent":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-400731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flex"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400731","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=400731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}