Galántai 80

Miklós Peternák (H)

Artpool Galantai Tribute
numerology – chronology – common denominator (8x10=80, 8x8=64)

1978 Samizdat
This year (no earlier than 1977 and no later than 1979) must have been when one of my friends Gábor Palotai, who also lived in Frankel Leó Street – a few blocks from György Galántai and Júlia Klaniczay – and already knew them, took me to their place to meet and talk. So this was long after the Balatonboglár Chapel Exhibitions but not long before the foundation of Artpool. We got hundreds of pages of typed translations from them: they were writings on art and interviews that no one could have access to from official Hungarian sources in those days. I managed to copy these before returning them, and of course to read them. C.f. artpool.hu/boglar/konyv_e.html, artpool.hu/Artpool.html, and galantai.hu/festo/

1983 AL
I regularly bought AL (Topical/Alternative/Artpool/Letter) as I thought it was an extremely exciting and important initiative and of course I was interested in the information published in it. (The numbers of the issues on the envelope: 1/7 – 12, 2/2 – 01, etc.) C.f.: “AL (Aktuális/alternatív/artpool/Levél), 1983-1985, issues 1-9, A/5 format, 10,11 A/4 format, offset, photocopy, rubberstamp, 3-400 issues, bookwork-type samizdat art magazine with various supplements. Reports, interviews, studies and documents on topical art events, artists and underground culture in Hungary and abroad, in Hungarian. An English-language summary was made for each issue. Every issue is numbered, signed and stamped “G. GALÁNTAI – SELF CONTROL” for authenticity. The issues were numbered and published from 1 to 50; if the number of issues ran out, the numbering restarted from the beginning: e.g. II/1/50. This tactic was necessary to ensure that if the publication is banned, it would not be a periodical that is banned but an artwork.” artpool.hu/Al/al01.html.
In the same year the film/art exhibition was organised together with Judit Lorányi in the Budapest Exhibition Hall (Szabadsajtó Road), where György Galántai was invited and displayed objects linked to his Stampfilm project. However, the catalogue contains the manuscript of the call for projects for making the collective film titled “Film in postal inspiration” (Artpool’s First Mail-Film Project). C.f. catalog.c3.hu (PDF)

1999 Inductive Point of Junction
A greater leap in time: Artpool P60 provided the venue for the exhibition of the Intermedia Department from 3 to 12 December 1999, for which a great homepage was made along with most of Intermedia’s second catalogue, although it was not exclusively based on the material exhibited there. A peculiar element of the show was that the invitation was addressed not simply to Intermedia but another gallery, which had just lost the former, proper foundation for its operation; i.e. choosing the institution within an institution form of operation (which can be topical today too) clearly showed that a seemingly tautological decision would not necessarily result in endless regression but, assuming a manifesto character, it became the elemental spatialisation of a new way of thinking and thus an exemplary communicative gesture. C.f. INDUCTIVE POINT OF JUNCTION BY INTERMÉDIA exhibition at the Bartók 32 Gallery.

2005 Crystals of libel
The time of the above photo: 19:15:13 21 March 2005 (EXIF data). Its title could be: György Galántai’s finger sticking into the picture – before the reconstruction / re-enactment of Miklós Erdély’s Doubt. Saturated solution, in Artpool P60, on the (past) celebration of the Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919, on its 85th anniversary. C.f. artpool.hu/2005/Ragalomkristalyok_en.html. The exhibition was part of the Exits series, which can be checked here: a Budapest Spring Festival / exhibition event unimaginable in 1981 - documents of an institutional experiment of ‘underground art’. C.f. artpool.hu/2005/kijaratok3.html and artpool.hu/2005/exits.html.
2010 Vilém Flusser artpool.hu/Flusser/flusser.html

2010 Vilém Flusser
One of Artpool’s often visited archives makes Vilém Flusser’s writings accessible in Hungarian. I share in Artpool’s great respect for Flusser, which is confirmed by the publication made in the above-indicated year: flusserdvd.c3.hu. It would be nice if the Artpool site was updated and this information were made accessible, especially because videos are now available on the Flusser wiki.

2014 Concept
I was extremely pleased that György Galántai liked this exhibition mounted in Paks.

2017 HAFA (Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts) / HUFA (Hungarian University of Fine Arts)
I found out a few years ago that György Galántai studied at the institution where I am working now. Before this it had never occurred to me to link him to any ‘school’ because of his absolutely autonomous personality. But then the series of memories connected to the same place, although to different times, suddenly intersected and thus met, and was augmented with a new, common memory.

28 April 2021

Miklós Peternák