The Hungarian Avant-Garde and Socialism - by Katalin Cseh-Varga (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

The emergence and the activities of a second public sphere in the areas of Soviet influence were intricately linked to the performative and intermedial production and usage of alternative spaces. Applying a multitude of perspectives and networked topography, The Hungarian Avant-Garde and Socialism investigates artistic strategies of spaces - namely those of the artist's studio, exhibitions, installations, clubs, apartments, cellars, event halls, and chapels - all of which existed parallel to or were interwoven with the regulated public sphere in Hungary from the beginning of the 1960s to the era immediately following the Kádár regime.

This book captures and discusses the exclusionary and inclusionary mechanisms inscribed into public spheres behind the Iron Curtain in all their paradoxes through the looking glass of an artist generation that was controversially labelled "neo-", and later, "post-avant-garde". Cross-referencing the international tendencies in the marginal art worlds that existed between and beyond the Cold War reality of Blocs, The Hungarian Avant-Garde demonstrates how mostly non-conformist artists in Hungary, and by extension the spaces they created, reacted to the conflicting, contradictory nature of public spheres in the post-totalitarian condition.

Review Quotes

'This timely and expertly researched study of unofficial Kádár-era art explores the resourcefulness and ingenuity of Hungarian artists keen to push the limits of artistic freedom. The book is indispensable for anyone interested in the question what it meant to be radical for an artist in post-1956 Hungary, and beyond.'
Sven Spieker, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA

Drawing on a wealth of research, Cseh-Varga provides a new and accessible interpretation of radical art phenomena in Hungary under socialism. The book points to the importance of the public sphere for the democratic ambitions and battles with authority of the East European neo-avant-garde.
Edit Sasvári, Art historian and Director of the Kassák Múzeum, Budapest, Hungary

This astute monograph offers a survey of Hungarian avant-garde art of the 1960s-80s that is at once accessible and methodologically rigorous. Its elucidation of the entanglements between the first (official) public sphere and its counterpart, the second (unofficial) public sphere, is thoroughly invigorating.
Klara Kemp-Welch, The Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, UK

About the Author

Katalin Cseh-Varga is a Hertha Firnberg Fellow at the Institute of Art Theory and Cultural Studies, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Austria.