Betreff: Evasion techniques exhibition catalogue now online from
Palazzo delle Esposizioni
Datum: Fri, 15 Jan 2021 09:01:42 +0000
Von: e-flux <i...@mailer.e-flux.com>
Palazzo delle Esposizioni
Evasion techniques. Strategies for the subversion and derision of power
in 1960s and ‘70s Hungarian avant-garde art
Catalogue online now
Curated by Giuseppe Garrera and Sebastiano Triulzi, the "Evasion
techniques. Strategies for the subversion and derision of power in 1960s
and ‘70s Hungarian avant-garde art" catalogue covers and illustrates the
show of the same name which was held at Rome’s Palazzo delle
Esposizioni, dedicated to a selection of those extraordinary avant-garde
artists who found themselves operating in conditions of danger,
inhibiting control and censorship, under a totalitarian communist
regime, even at risk of their own safety. Through their brave and
desperate attempts to express themselves and to disobey, their adventure
enables us to experience a crucial chapter in art history.
The catalogue, which you can now download
https://www.palazzoesposizioni.it/pagine/tecniche-d-evasione-catalogue
is a universal investigation into the condition of art under all systems
of power. Each chapter provides us with an instruction book of “evasion
techniques,” offering a glimpse at images, actions, traces of
performances held clandestinely and under the very nose of the
authorities, driven by the sole urgency of actually doing them. In this
way we encounter and get to know—in some cases for the first time in
Italy—a number of highly important artists, from Endre Tót to Judit
Kele, Sándor Pinczehelyi, Bálint Szombathy, András Baranyay, Tibor
Csiky, Katalin Ladik, László Lakner, Dóra Maurer, Gyula Gulyás, Ferenc
Ficzek, Tamás St. Auby (Szentjóby), Gábor Bódy, Marcel Odembach, Gyula
Pauer, Zsigmond Károlyi, Tibor Hajas, László Beke, István B. Gellér,
György Kemény, Kálmán Szijártó, Gábor Attalai, Károly Halász, László
Haris, Orsolya Drozdik. Their work was saved thanks to the dedication
and care of both museums and collectors. A special thanks goes to the
endeavours of the Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art of Budapest
and to the Hungarian Academy in Rome.
Six different moments are explored in the catalogue, each exemplifying
one of these evasion techniques. We begin with the artist’s
self-portrait as an idiot, fool or madman (established power is disarmed
when confronted by the childish and the clownish). Melancholy also
features strongly in this section, with artists representing their own
suffering, aware that they must operate outside any recognised state
institution (established power considers melancholy a political
disease). Female artists are well represented here, those who in a
patriarchal and chauvinist society caused scandal merely by presenting
themselves in public, and were accused of indecency. The second section
deals with various degrees of freedom—the clandestine, fleeting,
ephemeral ways of communicating and testifying dissent. This was most
frequently achieved by writing on walls or in the snow, actions which
were only witnessed by a camera whose reel remained a closely guarded
secret. The third chapter covers mail art, a form which enabled these
artists to communicate with their friends in the rest of Europe, those
living in free countries. This art crossed borders and dodged censorship
in the form of seemingly innocent envelopes or postcards.
The fourth chapter analyses the neurosis of power through photographs
and visual accounts, painful testimonies which always allude to a
reality perceived as a long succession of interdictions: railway tracks
leading nowhere, stone markers, fencing, danger or warning signs. This
urban signposting is continuously transformed into something
allegorical, allusive in these works. The “invitation to guerrilla”
section features piles of cobblestones masquerading as a documentation
of works in progress, but which are in fact a fierce allusion to
munitions and revolt. The final section explores the unease of art, the
anxiety experienced by these artists in the process of simply by making
their art. Some of their shows were literally held in their own back
gardens, during gatherings among friends, in backstreets far from
checkpoints and prying eyes. The Evasion techniques catalogue is
ultimately a pretext for grappling with the concept of the pervasiveness
of power, its dangerous paternalism, and serves as a political and civic
lesson on making art, pointing the younger generations in the direction
of still vital examples of libertarian and civic behaviour. As well as
towards non-alignment with any system of power, in primis that of art
itself.
Evasion techniques cataolgue—videos: January 19–26
Six short videos regarding the catalogue posted on Palazzo delle
Esposizioni website
<https://email.e-flux-systems.com/campaigns/eo253hqw6o2c0/track-url/ow494b2h6be12/38e24602eb98885c2e4c52b4bd5dc379ef8024e4>
______________________________________________
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
