Birthday messages and memories on the occasion of the 70th birthday of Júlia Klaniczay, co-founder of Artpool

Zdenka Badovinac

I had the opportunity to meet Júlia Klaniczay for the first time when I was preparing the Interrupted Histories exhibition in Moderna galerija in Ljubljana (2006). At that time, I invited her and György Galántai to collaborate with a specially prepared installation of documents from their Artpool archive.

Much before the opening of our exhibition, I visited their old place in a huge apartment that was given to them by the city municipality, where people from all over the world used to go to admire this wonderful archive. Of course, it wasn't just about the material itself, but about the whole atmosphere that sucked you in. At that time, it was Júlia who took me around all the rooms and explained the system of their archiving. It was clear that she was actually the main archivist who organized the archive that had been accumulated throughout all those decades since the beginning of the 70s in connection with everything that György Galántai was doing at that time as an artist. Well, that's just my impression of course, because I don't actually know exactly how the two of them shared the work, it's probably not written down anywhere. I worked with them quite a few times, they came to Ljubljana, then to MACBA Barcelona, where I prepared the Museum of Parallel Narratives exhibition. Julia was always the one I communicated with and ultimately decided how their installation should be set up.

I have always loved working with her and I hope I will again. Over the years I have come to love Julia a lot, although I must say that I was a little afraid of her from the beginning, she was always very calm and incredibly precise when we started to agree on cooperation. In the process of our cooperation, there were always moments when trust was built between us, and then everything went smoothly. Júlia is a unique person and professional for Hungary and the broader Central European area. It would be difficult to define what she is in one word, curator, archivist, artist? Probably, her work does not have to have any narrow definitions. She and György Galántai are simply Artpool, and Artpool became a term for a genre that I myself defined as selfhistoricization. Which means contextualizing one's own work and oneself through continuous collaboration with others.

I look forward to working with Júlia in the future and wish her all the best for her 70th birthday!

Zdenka Badovinac
(2024)