BBS 50Other Voices, Other Rooms – Attempt(s) at Reconstruction

An ex­hi­bit­ion and film scre­e­nings in Mű­csar­nok

BBS was a time bomb. The Stu­dio was res­pon­sib­le for the cre­a­ti­on of a pub­lic dis­co­ur­se, which it ex­ten­ded by deg­rees, al­most from ge­ne­ra­ti­on to ge­ne­ra­ti­on, cons­tantly push­ing the po­li­ti­cal en­vel­ope. Ne­it­her con­sis­tently nor en­ti­rely cons­ci­o­usly, it op­po­s­ed the of­fi­ci­al film in­dustry, where harsh po­li­ti­cal cen­sors­hip was firmly est­ab­lis­hed. How BBS wor­ked was re­de­fi­ned by each new ge­ne­ra­ti­on, ac­cord­ing to their own aest­he­tic prin­cip­les, way of think­ing and the­ory. This was both its grea­test merit and the truest mark of its de­moc­rat­ism” (Di­rec­tor Ist­ván Dár­day).

BBS – a sin­gu­lar phe­no­me­non
No stu­dent, in­tel­lec­tu­al or ar­tist in the 1980s and 1990s could igno­re the Ba­lázs Béla Stu­dio (BBS). Now, howe­ver, the first ge­ne­ra­ti­on is com­ing to age which knows noth­ing about BBS, and does not even su­spect that it was a cent­re of film­mak­ing un­pa­ral­le­led in the world. 271 di­rec­tors, 50 years, 511 films – this is BBS in num­bers. With re­gard to gen­res, the works made here cover the en­ti­re spect­rum: shorts, fea­tu­res, do­cu­men­ta­ri­es, ani­ma­tions, ex­pe­ri­men­tal films, video, ar­tis­tic do­cu­men­ta­tions, etc. In 1961, the film club that grew out of the as­so­ci­a­ti­on of young film pro­fes­si­o­nals in 1959 was gran­ted of­fi­ci­al sta­tus by the cul­t­u­ral po­li­cy ma­kers (chief among them György Aczél) of the Kádár re­gime, in an at­tempt both to sup­port and keep under ob­ser­va­ti­on the fresh gra­du­a­tes of the Col­l­e­ge of Film. From the start, the young ar­tists of BBS used the fra­me­work de­fi­ned by po­li­tics to ex­pe­ri­ment with, and re­form, the lan­gu­age of film. As the years went by, the Stu­dio be­came the fo­un­tain­head of films that were aest­he­ti­cally and po­li­ti­cally more and more da­ring, thanks to their cho­i­ce of sub­ject mat­ter and ex­pe­ri­men­tal­ism. Se­ve­ral di­rec­tors of mo­dern Hun­ga­ri­an ci­ne­ma star­ted their ca­re­er in BBS, among them Ist­ván Szabó, Sán­dor Sára, Judit Elek, Gyula Gaz­dag, Zol­tán Hu­szár­ik, János Rózsa, Ele­mér Ra­gá­lyi, Béla Tarr, János Xan­tus, Il­di­kó Enye­di and Gábor Bódy. It is an in­tel­lec­tu­al openn­ess that makes BBS spe­ci­al: the film­ma­kers kept the door open for cre­a­tive minds from other arts and fields of know­ledge, and vi­su­al ar­tists, the­at­re pro­fes­si­o­nals, writers, mu­si­ci­ans and so­ci­o­lo­gists were wel­co­me to make their own films or make va­lu­ab­le cont­ri­bu­tions to those of ot­hers. This was the sec­ret to those famed BBS do­cu­men­ta­ri­es, like the Pe­da­gogy Se­ri­es, Pál Schif­fer’s Csép­lő Gyuri or Judit Ember’s Right of Asy­lum (Me­ne­dék­jog). This was how Mik­lós Er­dély found the op­por­tuni­ti­es to make his le­gen­dary films, and this was how other im­por­tant fi­gu­res of Hun­ga­ri­an con­tem­por­ary art – among them Ákos Bir­kás, Péter Dobai, Tibor Hajas, Ágnes Háy, Dóra Ma­u­rer, Tamás Szent­jóby, Zol­tán Jeney, Lász­ló Vi­dovsz­ky and Lász­ló Naj­má­nyi – be­came as­so­ci­a­ted with the Stu­dio.

Re­coll­ec­ti­on and re­con­struc­ti­on
The ce­le­b­ra­ti­on takes place in Mű­csar­nok, where in De­cem­ber 2009 a large scale ex­hi­bit­ion will be ope­ned, ac­com­pa­ni­ed by film scre­e­nings and other col­la­te­ral events. The disp­lay will evoke the past 50 years of BBS in a way that en­ab­les yo­ung­er ge­ne­ra­tions to app­re­cia­te the age, the at­mosp­he­re in which these films were made, and to know who the emb­le­ma­tic fi­gu­res of the Stu­dio’s his­to­ry were. Con­tem­por­ari­es fa­mi­li­ar with BBS will have an op­por­tunity to evoke, re­live, or even re­in­terp­ret, the sha­red stori­es and ex­pe­ri­en­ces.

The ex­hi­bit­ion
The his­to­ry of the Ba­lázs Béla Stú­dió na­tu­rally of­fers a ch­ro­no­log­i­cal app­ro­ach; the­re­fo­re, the layout of the ex­hi­bit­ion is partly de­ter­mi­ned by a tem­po­r­ally based pe­ri­o­di­za­ti­on. The ex­hi­bit­ion which disp­lays the his­to­ry of BBS – high­ligh­ting cert­ain events – and fea­tu­res a se­lec­ti­on of its works does not, howe­ver, fol­low the logic of a clas­si­cal, (art)his­to­ri­cal ex­hi­bit­ion. The for­mu­la­ti­on of the dif­fe­rent ins­tal­la­ti­on spa­ces and the se­lec­ti­on of films, film gro­ups, and supp­le­men­tary in­for­ma­ti­on, work around such de­fi­ning con­cepts as cre­a­ti­vity, com­mu­nity, do­cu­men­ta­ti­on, pre­di­lec­ti­on, and cen­sure. Cons­ider­ing va­ri­o­us pro­jects from the last de­ca­de (ex­hi­bit­ions, con­fe­ren­ces, cri­ti­cal re­aders and mo­no­gra­phs) which stu­di­ed the so­ci­al his­to­ry and art of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, Other Vo­i­ces, Other Rooms mon­ta­ges fi­gu­res, pla­ces, sce­nes, com­mu­nal for­ma­tions and events. The ex­hi­bit­ion show­cas­es epi­sod­es of the cul­t­u­ral cli­ma­te of the Kádár era, pri­ma­rily th­ro­ugh se­lect ar­chive pho­to­gra­phs, daily news­pa­pers, es­says, and in re­la­ti­on to the con­texts of BBS, Hun­ga­ri­an Neo-avant­gar­de art, and the his­to­ry of ex­hi­bits at Mű­csar­nok / Kun­sthal­le Bu­da­pest. The ex­hi­bit­ion, as it is un­der­li­ned by the title, pro­pos­es a cons­tel­la­ti­on out of the nu­me­rous pos­sib­le app­ro­a­ches and re­con­struc­tions of the func­tion­ing of a uni­que Stu­dio, which, up until now, has only been disp­la­yed in parts.

2009. December 16. - 2010. February 21.

Kunsthalle, Budapest

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2009. November 25. - December 20.
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