Methodological questions concerning the interpretation of Hungarian neo-avant-garde came to the forefront after the political transition.1 In his posthumously published book, Lajos Németh described the crisis that neo-avant-garde art caused for Hungarian art history. By means of the problem formulation advanced in Törvény és kétely (Law and Doubt), following Hans Belting,2 Németh connects to the notion of the “death of art history” associated with the avant-garde.³ Németh explored whether the art of the period had actually undergone, or might have undergone, changes significant enough to warrant a revision of interpretative practices. His suspicion stemmed from the fact that such a phenomenon was atypical in the history of art. He concluded that due to the emergence of conceptual artistic practices, both the concept of art and art interpretation must be reconsidered in order to prevent art history from becoming “merely a descriptive discipline”.4 By this, Németh meant that uncovering historical documents alone is insufficient for art history writing to function as a “value-based discipline”.5 Consequently, thinking about the interpretative possibilities of neo-avant-garde art also entails representing Lajos Németh’s position.

Reconsidering the concepts of art interpretation and the artwork itself was not an unexpected theme in Németh’s oeuvre. In the preface he wrote to Pierre Francastel’s Művészet és társadalom (Art and Society), a collection of selected essays originally published in 1965 and translated into Hungarian in 1972, he already reflected on the relationship between artwork and society in the context of interpretation.6 In his volumes published in the 1970s,7 as well as in the 1985 issue of Ars Hungarica devoted to art interpretation,8 he addressed the same questions that he later examined in detail in his final book. In Törvény és kétely (Law and Doubt) he drew the following conclusions. 1. Due to the “polysemy” of artworks, multiple correct readings are possible.9 2. The meaning of an artwork changes over time, and these “changes in meaning also belong to the work”.10 3. The hermeneutic approach, replacing the positivist outlook aligned with natural-scientific models, leads to the increasing significance of the interpreter’s role.11

Lajos Németh primarily dealt monographically with modern artists who preceded or worked in parallel with the neo-avant-garde, as neo-avant-garde art was not at the center of his research. Nevertheless, through commentaries on artworks and speeches delivered at exhibition openings, he became involved in the life of neo-avant-garde visual art. His opening speech at the exhibition A dada Magyarországon (The Dada in Hungary), published in the first issue (1983) of the samizdat journal Aktuális Levél—considered a key platform of neo-avant-garde self-definition—testifies to this involvement.12 Although neo-avant-garde art did not occupy a central place in his analyses, Németh’s role is not negligible when examining the discourse. I consider Lajos Németh important to the reception of the neo-avant-garde, as he pursued substantial interpretative work and, among his contemporaries, engaged with the relationship between art history as a discipline and theory in a particularly distinguished way.13 According to Sándor Radnóti, among scholars pursuing academic careers at the time, Németh was considered “Unikum” due to his interest in contemporary art, and he also pointed out that Németh’s role was unprecedented in that he was recognised both by official institutions and by progressive artists.14

The “Stolen Moment” of the Neo-Avant-Garde

In Törvény és kétely (Law and Doubt), Németh formulated his critique in general terms when addressing the challenges posed by contemporary art and its interpretation, while simultaneously reproaching the critical discourse of the time. Although he did not mention specific examples, due to similarities in perspective, Németh’s opinion appears valid when compared with the phenomena discussed in Éva Forgács’s critical writings. In two articles written about exhibitions held in 1991,15 Forgács simultaneously summarised the interpretative difficulties surrounding Hungarian neo-avant-garde art.16 One of these exhibitions was the Hungarian National Gallery’s representative exhibition on the art of the 1960s, whose misguided nature was also addressed by Péter György.17 The other exhibition, organised jointly by the István King Museum and the Csók István Gallery in Székesfehérvár, was the first to present Miklós Erdély’s oeuvre to the public.

In the mid-1970s, László Beke identified a contradiction in the fact that “the recipient (interpreter) critic becomes identical with the artist, the interpretation becomes the artwork itself.”¹⁸ Nevertheless, he played a major role in both exhibitions mentioned above, and his role was criticised for precisely those issues he himself had regarded as problematic two and a half decades earlier. Another contradiction was articulated a few years after the turn of the millennium by Zoltán Csehy in relation to the death of the avant-garde: “It is natural nowadays to speak of the death of the avant-garde, since it has been suffering from a spectacular decline for two or three decades, yet internationally significant groups continue to embrace its legacy.”¹⁹ The question of continuity—both between the avant-garde and contemporary art, and between the historical and neo-avant-garde—further prompts a re-evaluation of avant-garde art and a reconsideration of the very definition of art.

Látlelet & prognózis (Diagnosis & Prognosis), published in 2016, brings together interviews conducted with artists and art historians in 1980 and 1984.20 In the preface to the volume, Dóra Maurer recalls Lajos Németh’s critical view that “artists and their friends” tend to write their own history, and she also classifies this book among such forms of “self-documentation”.²¹ The conversations focus on Hungarian art of the 1960s and 1970s, as well as on the future; on what art of the 1980s might be like. In his review of the book, József Mélyi wrote that even nearly two decades after the turn of the millennium, the basic concepts related to the art of the 1960s and 1970s remain unclear, and that this book should have been published at the time the interviews were carried out.²² From the perspective of the present study, Mélyi’s observation based on the interviews is also important: namely, that multiple concepts of the avant-garde were in use simultaneously, and that Lajos Németh and László Beke offer differing interpretations of the avant-garde.

A similar practice can be observed elsewhere as well: evaluations, conclusions, and questions concerning the processing of the neo-avant-garde are often articulated in reviews rather than in the art history publications themselves. Upon the publication of the first edition of A neoavantgarde (The Neo-avant-garde), Miklós Szabolcsi received vehement reactions due to the omission of the Hungarian context and the lack of reflection on this omission.²³ In his review of József Havasréti’s book, Pál Deréky offered a comprehensive assessment of the interpretation of the neo-avant-garde. While he praised Havasréti for his methodology, he reproached the entire art-historical discourse for the fact that partial studies focusing on individual oeuvres or artist groups are not connected to one another through a shared interpretative framework.²⁴

From all this arises the question of whether, after the “melting” of criticism, its function was taken over by another genre, such as the review. One of the early—if not the very first—examples of criticism formulated within the genre of the review, yet extending beyond its generic boundaries and addressing the discourse of neo-avant-garde art in a deeper and more general way, can be found in the articles written by Éva Forgács in the years immediately preceding her emigration in 1993.

In my view, those writings by Éva Forgács that were published in the years following the political transition are worth treating as a coherent whole. Two of her texts are most closely related: those addressing the 1991 retrospective exhibition of Miklós Erdély’s oeuvre and the exhibition Hatvanas évek (The Sixties) held in the same year.25 I connect additional texts to these. Due to her characteristic interests in the period, her 1990 essay on the relationship between literature and visual art also belongs here.26 Furthermore, her 2004 text on the continuity of the avant-garde is likewise relevant because of its subject matter.27 On thematic grounds, I also include two further writings. In Az ellopott pillanat (The Stolen Moment), Forgács argues that the artists of the European School did not receive, in due time, the reception that art requires in order to endure.28 The lack of contemporary reception caused a rupture in art-historical continuity and in the interpretation of the works. She described a similar process in her 1990 essay Töredék. Irodalom és képzőművészet kapcsolatáról (Fragment: On the Interplay between Literature and the Visual Arts), which addressed the progressive textile art of the period: while marginality initially facilitated the emergence and development of radical textile artists, it later rendered their activity impossible.29

Forgács described similar processes in her evaluations of the exhibitions of Miklós Erdély’s oeuvre and the art of the 1960s. The expression “stolen moment originally used to describe the art of the Európai Iskola, is thus also applicable to neo-avant-garde art. This, in turn, raises the question of whether the void created by the neo-avant-garde’s “stolen moment” can be filled by posterity, as suggested by Lajos Németh.

The “Melting” of the Neo-Avant-Garde

The coherence of Éva Forgács’s specific observations and proposals, as well as her views on the reception of the neo-avant-garde that have broader applicability, becomes particularly articulate when approached from the perspective of Lajos Németh’s programme. In connection with the 1991 exhibition of Miklós Erdély’s work, Forgács made a decisive statement regarding the reception of the neo-avant-garde when she asserted that by the early 1970s “art criticism had melted away”.30 She explained this development by the 1970 defection of Géza Perneczky, who had been among the most influential art critics, and those who remained of them—Éva Körner, László Beke, János Frank, Judit Szabadi, and Péter Sinkovits—“forgot their roles”, “retuned themselves to the wavelength of the new art”, and, instead of engaging in interpretation, produced “empathetic texts” in which they expressed “the same contents” that the artists themselves articulated “in their own forms”.31 In addition to such empathetic texts, art critics also supported the latest artistic practices through their participation in individual actions. According to Forgács, the phenomenon reflects the relative weakness and lack of established tradition in Hungarian art criticism, especially in comparison with the field of literary criticism.32

The “melting” of criticism may also be explained by what Péter György articulated in his review of the volume presenting the history and documents of the chapel exhibitions in Balatonboglár.³³ György emphasises that making sources and documents publicly available is a crucial and necessary step in the scholarly engagement with the neo-avant-garde. Moreover, this practice is not only essential from an art-historical perspective but also contributes to the study of the social history of the Kádár Regime. Since that time, art-historical approaches to the period and region have often prioritised the documentary significance of sources and the investigation of past events. Lajos Németh referred to this phenomenon as the challenge posed by its allied disciplines.34 Representing Németh’s position, György supplemented these observations with the remark that the documentation of sources cannot substitute for interpretation.³⁵ According to Németh, the conceptual turn in art opposed the mode of art interpretation upon which art history as a discipline had been founded. Consequently, he argued in favour of a combined approach to art history and art theory. In contrast, he observed that theoretical approaches had receded into the background of art-historical writing, and that what was lacking was “positive disturbance,” “being in doubt,” and “the act of asking questions”.³⁶

Lajos Németh himself put the strategy he advocated into practice when he raised the question of whether the difficult-to-access features of new artistic tendencies might also have appeared earlier, but were relegated to the background due to the rigor of the concept of “autonomous art”.³⁷ His argumentation culminated in the conclusion that “in the new paradigm, the artwork itself must occupy the central position”.³⁸ For this reason, he attributed central importance to the development of a new strategy of art interpretation. Németh argues that the critic’s responsibility lies in examining the “contemporary reception” of artworks, then the “various interpretative proposals based on the receptions of different periods,” and finally in “confronting the artwork with the perspectives of the present.”³⁹

In an interview published in the catalogue of the exhibition Hatvanas évek (The Sixties), held in 1991, Németh stated that “manipulative art criticism” had been dominant in the 1960s.⁴⁰ He neither defined the term nor provided examples. Nevertheless, the concrete referents of this expression may be inferred from Éva Forgács’s writings. In her articles on the two exhibitions held in 1991, Forgács appears to have outlined the characteristics of what Németh termed “manipulative art criticism”.

Forgács’s principal objection to the exhibition catalogue presenting the art of the 1960s was the absence of artwork analyses and career overviews; similarly to Lajos Németh, she advocated a theoretical approach in order to prevent the works from being excluded from the discourse.41 She likewise criticised the Miklós Erdély retrospective exhibition in Székesfehérvár for its lack of analyses focusing on the artworks themselves.42 What particularly troubled Forgács was that interpreters “pushed aside the concrete works,” since Erdély’s works in fact “provoke the debate partner”.43 As in the practice of weekly newspapers and journals, the catalogue’s interpreters, instead of entering into a debate with the artworks, focused primarily on the contexts of their production and on the artist. In doing so, they expanded the concept of the artwork “from retouching a picture in pyjamas to ordering Unicums”.44 Alongside the previously discussed “reconstructive” strategy—limited to the uncovering and presentation of facts—the process of “myth-making” likewise fails to bring interpretation closer to the artworks themselves.45

Éva Forgács writes critically about the role of László Beke in both of her articles. In relation to Miklós Erdély, he becomes ensnared in the “trap of myth-making,” thereby reinforcing the interpretive framework perpetuated by the exhibition,46 while his study on the interrelations of the art of the 1960s, he fails to address what is essential.47 Forgács misses the consideration of the perspective of posterity in Beke’s account of the 1960s. She also notes the absence of an interpretation of Hungarian art of the 1960s from the perspective of international movements.48 This aspect appears elsewhere as well in the reception history of the neo-avant-garde, as discussed earlier.

The Afterlife of the Neo-Avant-Garde

The “questioning art historian” praised by Lajos Németh is most fully embodied by Éva Forgács in her essay Történeti jelenség-e az avantgárd? (Is the Avant-Gard a Historical Phenomenon?) In this article, published in 2004, Forgács reflects on the post-structuralist reading she applies in place of artist-centered interpretations of neo-avant-garde art, as well as on the interpretative difficulties specific to Hungarian neo-avant-garde art. According to Forgács, Western scholarly literature may not necessarily be applicable to the Hungarian neo-avant-garde. The topic was revisited by scholars two decades later, who explored it with greater depth and nuance.⁴⁹ The significance of Forgács’s proposition is underscored by the fact that Peter Bürger’s controversial Az avantgárd elmélete (Theory of the Avant-Garde), originally published in 1975 and cited by Forgács in the aforementioned essay, appeared in Hungarian translation only in 2010, in a version translated by Tamás Seregi.⁵⁰ Further evidence of interest in the theoretical approaches referenced by Forgács is provided by András Müllner’s 2001 dissertation entitled Neoavantgárd szövegek posztstrukturalista olvasatai (Erdély Miklós) (Post-Structuralist Approaches to Neo-Avant-Garde Texts [Miklós Erdély]),⁵¹ Viktória Popovics’s 2013 research on A kritikai elméletek művészettörténeti recepciója (The Reception of Critical Theories in Art History),⁵² as well as Katalin Timár’s dissertation on the journal October,53 completed in the same year. The latter was also mentioned by Forgács in her article due to the impact of French post-structuralist concepts on the American critical scene.

Drawing on this groundwork, Éva Forgács’s 2004 essay heralds a new period in the reception of neo-avant-garde art. In the same year, the edited volume Né/ma? Tanulmányok a magyar neoavantgárd köréből (Silent? Studies and perspectives on the Hungarian neo-avant-garde) was published, bringing together neo-avant-garde interpretations that had emerged in the period following the political transition and were characterised by an interdisciplinary approach drawing on both literary and art-historical perspectives. What unites these interpretative approaches is that they emerged in opposition to earlier practices of “interrogating” the neo-avant-garde.⁵⁴ According to the editors, “interrogation” refers to the cultural-political environment of the time, and a shared feature of the essays in the volume is their break with the earlier mode of analysis, whose primary method had been the questioning or interrogation of the artist. However, giving voice to what was “silent” does not apply only to the artist, but also to the interpretative position that had remained silent for decades.

For his thesis on the Socialist Artists’ Group, Lajos Németh conducted interviews with the artists and found that it was possible to “confront their prewar works with their later views and with the art that was contemporary at the time”.⁵⁵ This reflects the theoretical principles he subsequently articulated concerning the role of the interpreter in his posthumously published book. In the case of neo-avant-garde art, however, the use of interviews functioned differently; a matter discussed in detail by Éva Forgács. With regard to the neo-avant-garde, scholarly interest focused on what happened, where it happened, and who carried it out; as a result, the artist and the artist’s opinion became the primary source. The issues discussed in this study raise the need for further research into the use of interviews as sources, along the following questions. Can interviews serve to highlight the functions of criticism that are otherwise absent or lacking; as they did, for example, in Lajos Németh’s thesis? Do the methodologies of art criticism and literary criticism necessarily differ; as suggested by Zoltán Csehy?

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