Diagram of the official art system during socialism in Hungary, published in Művészet (Art), 10/1979
Diagram of the official art system during socialism in Hungary, published in Művészet (Art), 10/1979
Miklós Erdély, Moral Algebra. Solidarity Action, 1972, Reconstruction, Miklós Erdély Foundation, Exhibition view, WKV 2009
Miklós Erdély, Moral Algebra. Solidarity Action, 1972, Reconstruction, Miklós Erdély Foundation, Exhibition view, WKV 2009
The Indigo Group, Temporary Sculpture Made of Cotton Wool, 1981
The Indigo Group, Temporary Sculpture Made of Cotton Wool, 1981
The Indigo Group, Temporary Sculpture Made of Styropor. The reconstruction of the 1981 “Temporary Sculpture Made of Cotton Wool”, Budapest – Berlin, 2009 , Exhibition view, WKV 2009
The Indigo Group, Temporary Sculpture Made of Styropor. The reconstruction of the 1981 “Temporary Sculpture Made of Cotton Wool”, Budapest – Berlin, 2009 , Exhibition view, WKV 2009
Gyula Pauer, Marx-Lenin, 1971
Gyula Pauer, Marx-Lenin, 1971
CAYC, Hungarian Edition, 1974
CAYC, Hungarian Edition, 1974
IPUT, Subsist.ence Level St.andard Project 1984 W, II. Phase, The Mutant Class (Art-St.Rike Tape), 1981
IPUT, Subsist.ence Level St.andard Project 1984 W, II. Phase, The Mutant Class (Art-St.Rike Tape), 1981

Tomorrow is Evidence!

Curators: Annamária Szőke, Miklós Peternák

Gábor Altorjay, László Beke (Archiv), CAYC Hungary, Miklós Erdély, Indigo Group, IPUT (superintendent: Tamas St. Auby), Gyula Pauer


The centrally administered institutional system of the art world between the 1960s and 1980s in Hungary were determined by the ideology of the state party, which was exercised not only through the cultural officials, juries, and the press, but also with the help of informers and agents enlisted into the political deterrence. Albeit beginning in the 1960s a
gradual “liberalization” was discernible in all areas of culture, the principal method of György Aczél (the influential cultural politician) remained in force up until the collapse of socialism. In the second half of the 1960’s, in opposition to the official “first” public sphere of artists, another “second public sphere” began to take shape including samizdat publications as well as exhibitions, educational lectures, actions, art courses, film screenings and concerts that were organized in private homes, cellars, studios, cultural houses, clubs, and various institutions connected with universities. Furthermore the artists of the “second” public sphere established manifold networks towards foreign art scenes: through personal connections and information that was spread by word of mouth or correspondence.
The works selected for this section were in their one-time circumstances subversive in many senses. We are curious, however, to see whether they could be considered subversive today. Here, the partially destroyed (Pauer), vanished (Erdély), ephemeral (Indigo) or simply never realized (Altorjay) works of art figure together with works that were presented in Hungary or abroad. They are presented in their original, recreated, or reenacted versions, the latter being undertaken by the artists themselves, referring to events of present-day time. (Annamária Szőke, Miklós Peternák; Title: Gyula Pauer: Protest-Sign Forest, 49)

WORKS (SELECTION)
All texts unless otherwise noted: Annamária Szőke, Miklós Peternák

Gábor Altorjay (D; 1946, HU)
15 Actions for Marta Minujin
, 1967
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Gábor Altorjay began his career as a poet in the first half of the 1960’s. From 1966 till 1967, he wrote numerous scripts for happenings, actions, as well as for a fluxus-concert. He escaped to Germany in 1967, lived for a short time in Stuttgart and worked later together with Wolf Vostell in Cologne. The figure of the Argentinean artist, Marta Minujin, which he saw on a photograph and which for him symbolized freedom, independence and beauty, prompted him to offer his 15 actions to Minujin in the summer of 1967. The premiere of 15 Actions for Marta Minujin was held on October 12, 2007 in the aula and screening room of the Hungarian University of Fine Arts, Budapest, as part of the event series entitled The Time of an Artwork/The Artwork through Time. Altorjay met Marta Minujin for the first time in 2009 in Stuttgart.

The Indigo Group
(Bálint Bori, Zoltán Lábas, János Sugár)

Temporary Sculpture Made of Styropor. The reconstruction of the 1981 “Temporary Sculpture Made of Cotton Wool”, Budapest – Berlin, 2009
Site-specific installation, styropor, wood, carbon paper used to cover the ceiling, 350 x 350 x 400 cm.
The original work was done for the exhibition entitled Hard and Soft (Post-conceptual Tendencies) which was part of the exhibition series Tendencies, organized by László Beke, Óbuda Gallery, Budapest, April 14–30, 1981
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“INDIGO” is the abbreviation of the Hungarian phrase “interdisciplinary thinking” (“INterDIszciplináris GOndolkodás”). This was the name of one of the artistic courses lead by Miklós Erdély from 1975 until his death. The Indigo course transformed into a group at the beginning of the 1980’s, which still exists today. The group focused on topics that went beyond the scope of the individual tasks of art and raised the question of the responsibility of the individual in society. The two texts distributed by Indigo in the first half of the 1980’s, the Indigo Call for Peace and the Deed of Foundation of the Voluntary Legislative Assembly refer to this interest. In a broader or narrower sense they were linked to the
contemporary international peace movement and its ideas. The 1981 installation of the Indigo Group, Temporary Sculpture Made of Cotton Wool, was its first work related to the threat of nuclear annihilation.

Gyula Pauer

Protest Sign Forest, 1978 (2009)
Site-specific adaptation of the open-air installation that was destroyed in 1978.
127 plastic boards with inscriptions, their size corresponding to the size of the originals.
Courtesy: Gyula Pauer
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Gyula Pauer began his career in the 1960’s as a sculptor and arrived at the anti-sculpture of his Pseudo art in 1970. Protest Sign Forest, an intervention in public space, was conceptualized as a street protest transferred to a natural setting. The legibility of the “slogans” on the signs was determined by the alterations of time of the day, the angle of incidence of the sun’s rays. The protest-signs formed a plastically and topographically structured order. The work finally stood covering an area of about 400 m2 for a single day, after which it was demolished by the authorities. Only the photographs made by Pauer before he fled the site preserve an overall picture of the work, which no one was able to perambulate and take in as the artist himself had imagined.

Marx–Lenin, 1971
Published by C3 on the occasion of the exhibition Subversive Practices, 2009. Din A/4, 2 pages, printed in a printing house, 2000 copies, © 1971, 2009, Gyula Pauer
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The press photo used in this work was published in April 6,1971 in Tükör (Mirror), referring to a large-scale statue of Karl Marx that was planned to be built for Karl-Marx-Stadt.

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