16–19 April 2015
AXA ART professional preview & vernissage: 15 April
Art Cologne
Hall 11
Messeplatz 1
50679 Cologne
Germany
BOOKMARKS traces the history and impact of important currents of Hungarian art over the last 50 years.
Visitors to the 49th Art Cologne (16 to 19 April 2015) can already look forward to a highlight in the entrance hall of the fair: the special exhibition BOOKMARKS presents several of the most important artistic positions of the Hungarian neo-avant garde and post-conceptual art from the late 1960s to the present. The exhibition is organised and curated by the three Budapest galleries—acb, Kisterem and Vintage—which will also be represented as exhibitors in the Collaborations sector in hall 11.3.
BOOKMARKS will not present a linear history of the development of Hungarian conceptual art. Instead, the special exhibition attempts to place past avant garde movements in a relationship with selected contemporary Hungarian art dating from the 2010s and to make their impact comprehensible.
With Miklós Erdély, Tibor Hajas, György Jovánovics, Dóra Maurer, Tamás St. Auby and Endre Tót, the special exhibition presents important works from several protagonists of the unofficial Hungarian art scene of the 1960s and 1970s. In their own time, their works remained almost completely unknown to the Hungarian and international public. The artists worked in isolation, and only a small circle of fellow artists, professionals, and friends had access to their art. When they were approved at all, exhibits took place in spaces known only to insiders. The shows were often prohibited by the ruling regime immediately following the opening. Although the artists were able to participate from time to time in exhibitions held in other socialist countries, and in some cases even in the west, only a few of these artists achieved international recognition. Even today, the art of the neo-avant garde generation, the significance of which is now known and recognized in professional circles as a result of their partial reappraisal, only lives on in its effects on the art of its successors. For example, important works created following the regime change at the end of the 1980s refer explicitly or obliquely to their artistic predecessors of the 1960s, 1970s or 1980s. Examples of this are found in conceptual artists like Little Warsaw, Ádám Kokesch and Gyula Várnai.
Artists in the exhibition:
Attalai Gábor, Altorjay Gábor, Bak Imre, Erdély Miklós, Hajas Tibor, Halász Károly, Jovánovics György, Kaszás Tamás, Keserü Ilona, Little Warsaw, Kokesch Ádám, Ladik Katalin, Lakner László, Maurer Dóra, Perneczky Géza, Société Réaliste, St. Auby Tamás, Szabó Dezső, Szalay Péter, Tót Endre, Várnai Gyula
The publishing company DISTANZ Verlag (Berlin) will release a catalogue on the BOOKMARKS exhibition.
BOOKMARKS was first presented in Budapest September 20–28, 2013, in an vacant storefront located at Balaton Utca 4, 1055 Budapest.
Contact
Daniel Hug, Director
Benjamin Agert, Communications manager:
T + 49 221 821 2076 / F + 49 221 821 2181 / b.agert [at] koelnmesse.de
Koelnmesse GmbH
Messeplatz 1
50679 Cologne
P.O.Box 21 07 60
50532 Cologne
Germany
Executive Board:
Gerald Böse, President and Chief Executive Officer
Katharina C. Hamma
Herbert Marner
Chairman of the Supervisory Board: Jürgen Roters, Mayor of the City of Cologne
Headquarters and place of jurisdiction: Cologne – District Court Cologne, HRB 952
