COURAGE

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Zsuzsa Szenes: What was a Utilitarian Article now is Decor, woolwork, 18x15x15 cm, 1975

At the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s, Hungarian cultural politics looked at almost every formal or substantial innovation distrustfully. This rigidity applied in particular to painting and sculpture. Graphic and particularly the applied arts were given less attention, as they were considered less significant. This is why progressive tendencies in the field of textile art enjoyed relatively undisturbed tranquillity within the confines of the Savaria Museum in Szombathely.

The Wall and Space Textile Biennials and the mini-textile shows provided exhibition opportunities, while the Velem Textile Workshops provided a production and community platform for the movement, which experimented with materiality and with space in ways more common in the visual arts, and also renewed the genre.

Zsuzsa Szenes created her multilayered object (now in the collection of the Gallery of Szombathely) in this context. Applying her well known technique, woolwork, she transubstantiates a utilitarian article, a gas mask. With this subtle procedure, she radically transforms the original connotations of the item.

With the help of a technique connected to femininity, she puts into quotation marks the function of the object originally linked to an accentually masculine activity, as if she were employing embroidery as a weapon against war. At the same time, she brings into play the notion of the caring mother, and she assigns a friendly, colourful, but at the same time homemade character to the object.

The starting point of the work is the fluxus idea merging art and life: everybody is an artist.

A radicalized version of this idea appears on the tableau consisting of thirty-six panels: some of the photos present workers as representatives of different art forms (a working postman is identified as a mail artist, a turner is called a sculptor, a road-builder is called a land artist, a compositor is called a writer, a person sitting on the tram in dungarees an actor etc.).

The panels of this photo series are combined with press photos (identical in size) referring to new, often dramatic artistic roles (prisoner artist, fear artist, radical artist, hunger artist, despair artist etc.). The tableau is accompanied by a diagram, indicating that by 2150 everybody will be a police employee, and in 2240 everybody will be an artist.

Sándor Szilágyi N.’s letter to Constantin Olteanu (Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party), memo, 6 folios, typewritten, registered document, 14^th November, 1988. In the Géza Domokos heritage, LIV. 3/43.

The Kriterion publishing house was founded in 1969 with the aim of publishing books in the languages of the minorities in Romania. The functioning of the Kriterion, and its institutional endurance among sistematic attempts aimed a tits abolishion can be safely considered a unique cultural achievement under the Romanian communist dictatorship. The publishing house used to publish in nine minority languages, and worked with a staff fully committed to publishing books of good quality.

The memo signed by editor Sándor Szilágyi N. illustrates well the methods, arguments and style of defensive measures employed by the staff of the publishing house against censorial interventions. The circumspect, scientifically and politically sensitive approach to the issues in question, the whole system of the argumentation played important role in the struggles with cenzorial prohibitions. The style of communication that combined the expected and tolerated discoursive elements and outstanding argumentatives kills many times proved to be crucial to the functioning of the publishing house.

This time, Szilágyi approached CC RCP secretary Constantin Olteanu as a party member, linguist and editor of the Kriterion publishing house, and framed his intentions of submitting the memo as a civic duty. The reason of his intervention: in April 1988, an ordinance came in to effect, according to which it was prohibited to publish the names of Romanian localities in the languages of national minorities, rather it had to be used the Romanian version of these names irrespective of the general language of the text.

The well edited text submitted by Szilágyi was written in a fine Romanian language, and contained psycholinguistic and linguistic arguments, as well as arguments of political and ideological nature. By employing a psycholinguistic approach, and offering a wide variety of historical, international, local and actual examples, Szilágyi proves that the mixing of languages can have a humorous or satirical intent or effect. Meanwhile he acquits the decision makers of the ordinance with the argument that the artificiality, the ludicrous character can be identified only by the native speakers/readers of the language, and not by the Romanian decision makers, who are unable to spot the unwanted overtones created by introduction of Romanian words in Hungarian, Serbian, German and other texts. From a linguistic point of view, Szilágyi highlights certain stylistic and grammatical challenges (for instance, differing gender of proper nouns in different languages) while applying the new rules. He also emphasizes that the inevitable and non-influenceable psychological reactions related to the use of mixed languages undermine the propaganda work. Moreover, it results in exactly the opposite effects: disrespectful usage of the Romanian language, bitterness, and frustration. The later attitudes emerge, according to Szilágyi’s argument, because the rule does not apply to localities outside Romania. Finally, he notes that this “not thoroughly considered” resolution brought at a lower decisional level goes against the provisions of the Constitution that guarantee the use of the mother tongue, which on its own turn implies the usage of the proper nouns too.

“Let me sink upwards (Waving image),” oil, gumming, mixed media, fiberboard, 305 × 342 cm.

The large format oil painting of Sándor Altorjai, consisting of two panels with adjoining sections of collages and applications: there is a jacket, a hat, a beard, a few old bank notes, and photos fixed on the left panel, and on the right there are plenty of photos, photocopies, and press clippings. The painted parts were made with multiple techniques, with brush, dripping, scratch, overprint, uncovering, one can see even marks of paint applied by feet. Originally a sculptural, shiny waving hand protruded from one of the sleeves of the jacket (in accordance with the subtitle).

The photos were taken during a film shoot with a close friend of the artist, Miklós Erdély, depicting him masked as a “poor Jew,” confronted with texts and press clippings of the period. The photocopy of the author’s identity card, placed in the lower right corner (substituting the sign), deserves special attention, because at that time it was forbidden to reproduce an official document in any form.

The work has an adventurous history. It was intended to be shown first at the yearly exhibition of the Studio of Young Artists in the Ernst Museum in 1967, but an unusually large jury arriving five days prior to the opening judged it inappropriate (along with 69 other artworks). However, this single work could not be carried away immediately due to its size and weight, so it remained in the exhibition space, but was covered with a drape. This way many visitors could see it by moving the drape.

The very same thing happened in 1980, at an exhibition organized after the death of the painter. Just before the opening, a party delegation from the district council descended on the spot and told to the director of the institution that the picture was inappropriate for exhibition due to its ambivalent Jewish aspects. The director called the curator to act accordingly, but he refused to remove the object because of its size and weight. The director then covered the picture with a drape himself, but the audience undraped it several times during the opening event.

Keston has 69 anti-religious and political propaganda posters, though it remains unknown how the Keston Institute acquired them. Archivist Larisa Seago deduces that they likely came from different sources over time. The poster featured here was created by V. Zharinov in 1977, as part of the set “Razum protiv religii” (or “Together Against Religion”). 40,000 copies were printed. A. Karasev and S. Rezin were the authors of the rhyme used in the image: “Honest people’s sacred duty is to save children from the church’s darkness.” This poster is a reminder of the Soviet state’s foundational atheism and efforts well into the 1970s to dissuade and discourage the life and work of faith communities throughout the USSR.