Category Archives: art

General arts and culture posts

Planking and Hitchcock: Paintings by Attila Szucs

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Attila Szucs‘ recent show of paintings at Erika Deak Gallery focused on planking, the recent social phenomena where people lay stiff as boards in incongruous places. The painter often starts from images from the media or photos and surrounds them with emptiness, here applied to people planking. I don’t think the works convincingly suggest an existentialist vacuum, if that was what Szucs meant to imply, and to me the figures remain ridiculous rather than some kind of metaphysical argument about the place of the individual in the universe. Perhaps the association of planking with humor is just too strong in my mind.

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However, his paintings are wonderfully executed. The large canvas of the Hitchcockian blonde, my favorite work in the show, on all fours suggests as much. Her conventional femininity, anachronistic in its hairstyle and clothing, becomes vulnerable, the direct gaze impenetrable. Her shadow double mirrors the outline of the room she occupies.

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Hungary: A cultural scene in a state of crisis

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“The situation is desperate, but not serious” is the final sentence of this excellent New Yorker article detailing responses to the growing neo-Facist political control of Hungarian culture; For example, Nobel laureate Imre Kertesz–whose most famous novel is a semi-autobiographical account of surviving Auchwitz– had decided to give his archives to Germany instead of the land of his birth, Hungary:

January 8, 2013

THE FRIGHTENING HUNGARIAN CRACKDOWN

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In November, 2012, the Nobel prize-winning novelist Imre Kertész announced his retirement. The writer, who as a fourteen year-old was transported to Auschwitz, has become one of Europe’s most eloquent and respected literary witnesses to the Holocaust. In books such as “Fateless” and “Kaddish for an Unborn Child,” he has made the paradoxical case that “the concentration camp is imaginable only and exclusively as literature, never as reality—not even—or rather least of all—when we have directly experienced it.” Since his working life has been devoted to this act of imagination, his decision to house his archive not in his native Hungary but, rather, in Germany appears to be a profound gesture of reconciliation. Yet, when I said so on Twitter, a Hungarian writer friend e-mailed to tell me that Kertész’s decision was also driven by more negative concerns:

I’m afraid there is something more to it: he has also good reasons to believe that in Hungary his legacy wouldn’t be treated with as much respect as in Germany, as he is regarded by the current political elite as an “unHungarian” and then I’ve been euphemistic. For example, currently his work is not part of the Hungarian national education programme, due to some changes in school material in which, at the same time, three famously antisemitic writers have been included.

My friend has asked to remain anonymous, as he fears that if he is publicly identified as a critic of the government it could cause problems for him and the company where he works. His fears appear to be well founded. Across Hungary, the cultural scene is in a state of crisis.

 

Democracy, sche-mocracy: “I don’t give a damn for this modern democracy”

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For English subtitles, you may have to turn on the caption feature (first button, bottom right).

I wrote a bit about conservative controls on the Hungarian arts scene a couple weeks ago, but now there is a much better piece explaining the situation on ArtLeaks, based on a statement from the International Association of Critics, called “The anti-democratic makeover of the cultural scene in Hungary.” Also see the aptly titled “The Lunatics are Running the Asylum” post over on Beyond East.

Or, just take these titles at their word and revel in the absurdity of the comments in the video above of Gyorgy Fekete. Fekete, the head of the Hungarian Academy of Artists (MMA), was recently given control of Hungary’s entire cultural budget with an authority unmatched since Socialism. There is much choice language in the video above, an appreciation of which is only enhanced by further reading of the above listed articles, which elucidate the difference between reality and Fekete’s statements further. However, my personal favorites are:

  • “unambiguous national sentiment” being the third requirement for membership in the MMA, that is “someone who feels at home and doesn’t travel abroad in order to revile Hungary from there.” [00:47]
  • “There must not be blasphemy in state-run institutions.” [2:19]
  • “This is about a Hungary built on Christian culture; there is no need for constant, perpetual provocation.” [2:25]
  • “I don’t give a damn for this modern democracy” [2:46]

    • And it’s certainly worth watching to the end. On his haircut, he remarks:

  • “I cut it myself.” [3:38]

Stay informed of absurd news on the Hungarian cultural scene (and hopefully more positive news as well)! Now in English! Check it out here: Autonomy for Art in Hungary.