György Galántai’s current work is inseparable from Artpool, established by himself and Júlia Klaniczay in 1979, which is again inseparable from his activities carried on and the exhibitions mounted in the chapel in Balatonboglár, open from 1970 to 1973. This autonomous art world, which has been operating in various venues, in Budapest and in Kapolcs, since 1991, is characterised by the simultaneous presence of the freedom of intuition and the network of continuous references. Of course the meaning and role of these references are not self-explanatory, as it also becomes obvious at the now ongoing Kapolcs exhibition titled The Evolution of Parallel and Chance Realities or The Integration of Doubts/Doubles and Chance. As he mentioned in an interview conducted with him by Emese Kürti and Zsuzsa László, Galántai has been dealing with semiotics since the seventies, i.e. with linguistic play built on references, contexts, paraphrases, metaphors and rhymes since “parallel realities” refer to social science texts and “accidental reality” to poetry and reality, or if you wish, to the freedom of art. Every exhibition interwoven with references creates and seeks interpretations, i.e. the meaning and significance of documents often change. For example, Galántai exhibited an enlarged, foil-protected copy of László Szabó’s article, Happening in the Crypt, published in the daily Népszabadság in 1973. Szabó was once the domestic political columnist of the paper and the presenter of the television crime magazine Kék fény. His article – otherwise full of unclassifiable nonsense and lies – was tantamount to a successful report to the authorities and indeed a part of the fact that in 1973 the chapel in Balatonboglár could no longer function in the context created by Galántai. The enlarged version of Szabó’s text is partly a document, the role of which, that is its consequences, would have been a good idea to indicate so that those who were born after 2000 could also see the workings of that age. At the same time, magnifying it inevitably makes it a work of art.

The above confirms that Galántai understands and exploits the haphazard nature of the borderlines between document and artwork, or more precisely the necessity to create them, which is precisely the method he used and the reason why he placed a signpost at the beginning of the small street located between the buildings and exhibition venues in Kapolcs with the text “You are now entering Area 51”, written in Hungarian, English, French and German. Arca 51 is the name of a secret military airport, which in itself is a witty allusion since both places are home to experimenting; moreover, it is a reference to the famous sign in Berlin “You are now leaving the American zone.” – i. e. beware of entering the areas controlled by the Soviet Union and by the Stasi of the GDR – which has become a museum piece.

Of course there are also cases when the creation of a borderline between a document and a work of art, i.e. leaving one zone and entering another, raises numerous questions that need to be resolved. Pictures and documents are displayed at the Möbius Strip Mystery exhibition in the Galántai House, at 53 Kossuth Street in Kapolcs. Here, a colourful picture is clearly presented among the documents: the image shows the architectural plan of the pedestrian bridge designed by Nextarchitect, a firm based in Amsterdam, being built in the Chinese city of Changsha. The representation of this truly impressive work of art that is about to be realised reflects our ideas about the concept of design, i.e. here the context can be understood without any special indication. The situation is much more perplexing in the case of a recently discovered pencil drawing depicting dense, overlapping loops, made by Miklós Erdély and now preserved by Galántai. It is a minimalistic work that – in accordance with Erdély’s wishes – can be confused, i.e. it can be compared with the most diverse depictions, just as Erdély saw poetry as a radical breaking down of language, as a linguistic critique. The work of art that can now be seen in Kapolcs has almost no art-like characteristics, i.e. there is no visual prejudice that would help one to recognise it as an object of art. The picture is not in a frame but instead held by tweezers, and the visual narrative itself has little role in its identification and recognition as a work of art. In other words, the piece can be safely considered as a document too, the ambiguity of which could even be welcomed, while the aesthetic/visual trap can obviously always engender constructive misunderstandings. But people are not so vulnerable and puritanical at the same time. It was not an easy decision for Galántai to make in regard to Erdély’s work, whether to present it as the document of an era or as a work of art; especially since the artist himself was not sure how to regard his works or have them regarded by others. It is undeniable that identifying this work as a piece of art would engender a different dialogue in the viewers than positioning it as a document. The case in point here is not the instrumentalism-essentialism debate going on in the art world, although it is clearly also evoked. The reason why I have brought up this little question is not simply a matter of the obviously serious material difference between the two statements, i.e. document versus work of art. It is much more important that the network of references in each of Galántai’s exhibitions defines the scope, meaning and use of the concept of art. It is to do with the crucial issue in Galántai’s work: the dual structure, dual perception and reality of simultaneously created works of art and exhibitions. The answer to the seemingly unavoidable question (which does not always promise useful answers) whether Galántai produces exhibitions or works of art and/or documents lies in the nature, precision and sensitivity of the classification adopted by the users, adherents, committed artists and collectors of contemporary art. What Galántai gives his audience is not aesthetic discoveries stemming from introverted correspondences, nor non-human dramas, nor the presence of psychological-philosophical self-identities, and not even the results of geometric decisions. What he gives is dialogues between concepts and objects, and transposing linguistic plays into visual dimensions. In other words, I believe – and I hope I’m not mistaken – that he considers his exhibitions, i.e. his collections of documents to be his works of art as well. At the “Festival of the 79-year-old Young People” we can see recordings by old musicians one after the other, from Joan Baez through Bob Dylan to Paul Simon (I knew these, the rest I didn’t). This collection is a one-off document, the meaning of which is not left unaffected by the emblem of the exhibition: the integration of doubts/doubles and chance.

Artpool, thus György Galántai and Júlia Klaniczay, as well as their colleagues will continue their work in Budapest in a new institutional framework from the autumn: in the Central European Institute for Art History (KEMKI), which belongs to the Museum of Fine Arts, and is located in Szabolcs Street, in one part of the main building of the former Israelite Hospital. The new architectural and, finally, the co-existing professional context raises the question of classification, references, exhibitions, documentation and the networks of works again and again. The partly old and partly new underground institution, established in 1979, has years of important work ahead of it, both in Budapest and in Kapolcs. The Accidental Future is palpably close.

(The Integration of Doubts/doubles and Chance and the Möbius Strip Mystery exhibitions, Kapolcs)