Naturally, the neo-Avant-Garde movement also managed to gain ground in Budapest, but more moderately, and under the close supervision of the Soviet-controlled government. It was much easier to organize shocking and subversive exhibits in a chapel in the countryside than in the capital, where the scope of authority was greater – and this is exactly what edgy Magyar artists regularly did in the ‘70s, at the Körmendy Chapel in Balatonboglár. Alongside the most major figures of the capital’s artistic scene, the artists of the Pécsi Műhely (Pécs Workshop) also represented themselves at this underground exhibition venue.
The operation of this intellectual group – that existed between 1968 and 1980 – was extraordinary for many reasons; and one of them is that the parliamentarian here was György Aczél, who directed the cultural life of Kádár’s Hungary. The artists of the Pécs Workshop – Ferenc Ficzek, Károly Hopp-Halász, Károly Kismányoky, Sándor Pinczehelyi, and Kálmán Szijártó – all had decent jobs in the artistic scene: during the day they were officially employed in positions like a teacher, the head of the local community center, and as an employee of a museum, but at night they created art, exploring the gap between movements known and unknown by the authorities.
They were familiar with the freshest movements in fine arts, and as they were all former students of Ferenc Lantos, they were highly influenced by op-art, Vasarely, and geometric abstract art. In the countryside, the newest forms and actions of fine art were completely unknown by the authorities, such as Land Art, in which the Pécs Workshop's artists were pioneers in the Hungarian and Central and Eastern European neo-Avant-Garde art scenes.
This basically meant that they took their favorite geometrical elements into nature, and examined how they would adapt to a significantly different environment, how much they cover from the landscape, and how they are perceived from afar; whether they decompose or become integral parts of nature, and how they are influenced by the weather. They painted on trees, lowered gigantic paper rolls into a stone quarry, threw dice down from high above, and planned, documented, photographed, and filmed all of their actions precisely. They collected their notes in folders, and drew conclusions. These actions were not entirely intended to be for the arts; they were rather geometric workroom experiments, and the artists probably did not think that their documents would be displayed in museums in the future.
In the meantime, such actions were also carried out independently in other Central and Eastern European countries like Poland and Yugoslavia through similar “homemade” methods. Western European and American artists of the genre, however, had a more serious infrastructure. A renowned representative, Robert Smithson, worked with excavators and helicopters; he was also known by the artists of the Pécs Workshop, and after his death, Károly Halász recreated his signature stone sculpture by drawing spirals in the sand on the Danube Shore near Paks, pouring oil inside, and lighting it on fire. The documentation of this exciting action is also displayed in the exhibition.
The group also experimented amid urban scenes, examining how the city’s tones, lights, and shadows change, and what happens when they hang geometric shapes out of the window. In their seemingly banal photos they aim to capture times of the past. There are broader and more personal messages behind these series: when Károly Kismányoky’s family could not accompany him to Paris, he took a button off his wife’s coat, and documented it as he threw it in the River Seine with the Eiffel Tower in the background.
The documentations of Land Art only make up one segment in the two-story exhibition, as the work of the Pécs Workshop was more complex than that. The group examined the connection between new mediums like photography and television and geometry, as well as the role of arts and museums (visitors to the exhibit can also see a mini exhibit created for home use); furthermore, their works display political signs, the hammer and sickle, and pentagrams. The question of self-representation also emerges, which is extremely interesting in the case of Károly Halász, who has an emblematic photo series that displays the artist himself – who had to keep his homosexuality a secret in the ’70s – climbing inside an empty television naked.
The nearly 400-piece exhibit guides viewers through the entire oeuvre of this artistic group, from conceptual artworks through performance documentations and motion pictures; furthermore, visitors can also take a glimpse into countless archive documents, exhibition cataglouges, and correspondences. The exhibit is concluded on the third floor with a more conservative series of paintings, graphics, and enamel works, as after 1980 the artists stopped working together and continued to pave their artistic paths individually. Unfortunately, out of the five artists, Károly Halász and Ferenc Fitzek are no longer alive.
In the ’70s neo-Avant-Garde also flourished in several Hungarian towns like Székesfehérvár, Győr, and Nagyatád, however, there weren’t any other systematic groups like the one in Pécs. The opening of this exhibit at the Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Arts was perfect timing, as another temporary display in the museum presents the Avant-Garde art of former Yugoslavian countries through the personal collection of Marinko Sudac, putting the exhibition into international context.
