JOY AND DISASTER

EXHIBITION EXTRA MUROS

Staged at S.M.A.K., Ghent, on the occasion of Hungary’s EU presidency, Joy and Disaster is in fact that second stage in a series with the same, ambiguous title,* which references Hungarian social conditions in a very broad context. There is also another precedent to the Ghent show, a 1980 exhibit of S.M.A.K, which was curated by Jan Hout, then director of the institution. 6 Hungarian Artists focused on the conceptualist trends of the time, and some of the works of the six exhibiting artists – Tibor Hajas, Miklós Erdély, András Halász, Zsigmond Károlyi, Endre Tót and János Vető – went on to become parts of the S.M.A.K. collection. It is an added interest that Tibor Hajas presented a one-hour performance at the opening thirty years ago, which was recorded on 16 mm film. S.M.A.K is now digitizing the original reel. The selection now presented at S.M.A.K. points up the structuralist construction of the artworks, their relationship to language, formal inventions, and the social message these have – exactly those characteristics that seem to experience a revival at the end of the first decade of the new millennium, in all artistic expressions the world over.

As we look back, the 1980 exhibition seems closer to us as regards its approach and the types of works featured than the produce of any other periods in Hungarian art. And we emphasize this continuity not only to assert a permanence of quality, but also to create a situation in which the links between the generations are highlighted, because Miklós Erdély, or Zsigmond Károlyi after 1990, was an important source of inspiration, whether direct or indirect, for artists who started their careers after the turn of the millennium. For the same reason, Joy and Disaster features not only the young and middle generations, but a work each by Erdély, Károlyi and Hajas, from the S.M.A.K. collection.

* The first exhibition of Hungarian art under the title Joy and Disaster was staged at the k/haus, Vienna, in the summer of 2010, and featured Csaba Nemes, Miklós Erhardt, István Csákány and Tamás Kaszás.