{"id":580,"date":"2012-07-03T16:19:01","date_gmt":"2012-07-03T16:19:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tranzit.org\/posttransition\/?page_id=580"},"modified":"2012-07-03T16:50:57","modified_gmt":"2012-07-03T16:50:57","slug":"gabor-andrasi-art-historian-curator-1954","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/tranzit.org\/posttransition\/?page_id=580","title":{"rendered":"G\u00e1bor ANDR\u00c1SI, art historian, curator, 1954"},"content":{"rendered":"

What role did the regime change play in your professional career? <\/strong><\/p>\n

In the administrative sense, it played no role at all. I was able to continue my professionally independent work as an employee of the \u00d3buda Social Circle (predecessor: \u00d3buda Clubhouse, later \u00d3buda Cultural Center), organizing the parallelly running programs of the two exhibition spaces (Pince [Basement] Gallery of \u00d3buda and \u2013 as of 1987 \u2013 \u00d3budai T\u00e1rsask\u00f6r Gallery [\u00d3buda Social Circle Gallery]) just as before, since 1981.The concept of the galleries, however, did undergo a process of transformation as a result of the circumstances. The function of \u201crehabilitation\u201d \u2013 meaning exhibitions organized for artists who were unknown or pushed to the periphery of the scene, away from prestigious sites of the official public sphere \u2013 lost its relevance and became obsolete. (In the eighties, the 45-square meter basement gallery of F\u0151 t\u00e9r [Main Square] still held important opportunities for middle or older generation artists regarded as \u201cavantgardists.\u201d) From that point on, the concept was comprised of three main components: 1. Holding first-time solo exhibitions for debuting artists (irrespective of age, but especially for the younger generation: e.g. M\u00e1ria Chilf, Endre Koronczi, Kamilla Sz\u00edj). 2. Bringing shifts and turning points in the work of known artists to public attention (e.g. Gy\u00f6rgy Jov\u00e1novics, R\u00f3bert Swierkiewicz, Ern\u0151 Tolvaly, P\u00e9ter T\u00fcrk), and initiating the return of artists who had been \u201csilent\u201d for years (e.g. P\u00e9ter Don\u00e1th, J\u00e1nos Major). 3. Establishing international relations and organizing exhibition exchanges.<\/p>\n

I had been publishing on a regular basis \u2013 at first on literary topics, later in the field of art \u2013 in various periodicals; between 1981 and 1984, I was an art critic for Vigilia<\/em>. In 1991, however, I was asked by P\u00e9ter Sinkovits to edit issues of \u00daj M\u0171v\u00e9szet<\/em> [New Art], a periodical that had been launched shortly before.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

What cornerstone events or publications in art \/ politics \/ public life \/ the professional sphere do you remember, and which of these influenced you, directly or indirectly? <\/strong><\/p>\n

As I have articulated on a number of occasions, in my opinion, the political regime change was preceded by a shift in the world of visual art (in other words, the critical and art historical canonization of modernism, as well as, in contemporary art, the appearance of the avantgarde, which had transformed into \u201ctransavantgarde\u201d and a \u201cnew sensibility,\u201d on such official public forums as the Hungarian National Gallery and the Venice Biennial). Thus, to me, the artistic and professional turn \u2013 which took about a decade \u2013 was manifest in the Tendencies <\/em>exhibition series organized in the early eighties in \u00d3buda, the S\u00e1ndor Altorjai exhibition, and later 101 Objects (Object Art in Hungary, 1955-1985) <\/em>and Mikl\u00f3s Erd\u00e9ly\u2019s exhibitions.<\/p>\n

Today, I consider the Xerox Project of the Soros Foundation (thanks to which the \u00d3buda Clubhouse received a copy machine that could enlarge and minimize images, and whose use was strictly monitored only in the beginning), along with the increasingly bold distribution practice of the samizdats Besz\u00e9l\u0151<\/em> and AL <\/em>(Artpool Letter<\/em>), as precursors of the turn.<\/p>\n

Institutional changes on the scene were affected by such developments and factors as the institutional activity of the Soros Foundation (SCCA) and the new exhibition politics of the M\u0171csarnok \/ Kunsthalle Budapest, which demonstrated a new, modernist\/ex-avantgarde canon; the turn of the periodical \u00daj M\u0171v\u00e9szet <\/em>[New Art] in a more progressive direction (as compared to its predecessor); the foundation of the Ludwig Museum (1989), and the opening of its permanent exhibition (1991), The Sixties<\/em> exhibition at the Hungarian National Gallery (1991), as well as the appearance of the first commercial galleries.<\/p>\n

Among the events that reflected the a more large-scale turn in politics and public life, the protest against the Gab\u010d\u00edkovo \u2013 Nagymaros Dams was a memorable community experience (12 September 1988), which was observed by the police in almost full passivity. The opening of the border a year later (19 August 1989) and the subsequent exodus of East German citizens through the Austrian-Hungarian border had the impact of a revelation. Imre Nagy\u2019s reburial ceremony (16 June 1989) took place between these two events, with never before seen performative elements and a memorable installation by G\u00e1bor Bachman and L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Rajk.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Through what channels, from what sources have you received your knowledge about this period?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was lucky enough to experience it first hand and \u2013 within the scale of the two small galleries \u2013 participate in the process that was taking place on the art scene. It was possible to gain information not only from the samizdats, but also from the increasingly free press; it was possible to follow closely the negotiations of the Opposition Roundtable and the establishment of the multiparty system (the process of privatization to a lesser extent).<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Has your picture of the regime change and its ideas been altered \u2013 if yes, in what way, and as a result of what \u2013 in the past 10 \/ 5 \/ 1 year(s)?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It hasn\u2019t changed at all. I am forced to acknowledge the overwriting and relativization of past events according to the power dynamics of the time, as well as the evaporation of the inspiring intellectual potential that permeated the period marked by these two or three years, which briefly conjured up the illusion of intelligent freedom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What role did the regime change play in your professional career? In the administrative sense, it played no role at all. I was able to continue my professionally independent work as an employee of the \u00d3buda Social Circle (predecessor: \u00d3buda Clubhouse, later \u00d3buda Cultural Center), organizing the parallelly running programs of the two exhibition spaces […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":571,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tranzit.org\/posttransition\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/580"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tranzit.org\/posttransition\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tranzit.org\/posttransition\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tranzit.org\/posttransition\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tranzit.org\/posttransition\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=580"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/tranzit.org\/posttransition\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":605,"href":"https:\/\/tranzit.org\/posttransition\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/580\/revisions\/605"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tranzit.org\/posttransition\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tranzit.org\/posttransition\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}