Tamás St. Auby – interview (1998)

László Beke, Miklós Erdély, György Jovánovics, Péter Legéndy, János Major, Gyula Pauer, and Tamás Szentjóby – exhibition and actions

I exhibited a construction in Balatonboglár, too, which dealt with what was forbidden. Art historians often assume that this is related to the three categories: supported, tolerated, and forbidden.[1] It is related to these, too, but the basic concept is embedded in an aesthetic system—it refers to what is determined as forbidden by the state and the church. Not in the order of socialism or state socialism and its church, actually, but worldwide. What was important for me was to name this territory—the territory of what is forbidden—and to suggest that this should be forbidden, as art has always been expressly such for us. In Balatonboglár, I put an A4-size sheet of paper in the altar’s place. It had one sentence written on it in very small letters: “Be forbidden!” I set up a cordon in front of it, so when the audience reached it, they could not read what it said, as it was too far away. In order to be able to read it, one had to climb over the barrier, and when someone did that, they could read, “Be forbidden!” So they could read exactly what they had done: they had stepped over a barrier.

Source: Törvénytelen avantgárd. Galántai György balatonboglári kápolnaműterme 1970–1973 [Illegal Avant-garde, the Balatonboglár Chapel Studio of György Galántai 1970–1973], eds. Júlia Klaniczay and Edit Sasvári  (Artpool–Balassi, Budapest, 2003): 151.

On the website of Artpool Art Research Center