Fanzine Anatomy – Alternative Hungarian Publications on Music and Politics from the Artpool Collection

From the second half of the 1980s alternative self-published and technically inexpensive publications emerged that (unlike samizdat) were themed around (and for) a particular subculture, scene or fan community. In the 1990s, liberation of social organizing, together with the growing availability of photocopying and Western models, created the ideal conditions for the flourishing of fanzines as a genre.

This intense period seems to have come to an end in the 2000s with the rise of the internet. Subcultural discourse has largely moved online and zines that have become widespread in the art world—and which are not presented in this collection display—prioritize aesthetic quality over social and political aspects.

In this display we present publications from 1986 to 2003 selected from the rich fanzine collection of the Artpool Art Research Center. The two themes of the selected publications—music (related to punk and other alternative subcultures and/or thematizing music) and political or social issues (mainly by anarchist and feminist groups)—are in many ways intertwined.

Behind the seemingly chaotic editorial principles that define fanzines, there is a recurring structure that draws on formats present in mainstream media as well: in the collection display, enlarged copies of the publications’ pages and the original fanzines are arranged in successive thematic groups according to these reconstructed genres or ‘columns’. In other words, we have created a fictitious anthology, revealing the typical structural basis of alternative publications, i.e. an anatomy of fanzines.

The collection display is dedicated to the memory of László Klein (1974–2021).

Curators: Éva Bárdits, Viktor Kotun, Zsófia Kókai, Gabriella Schuller.

Opening speech by Bea Istvánkó, ISBN+.

The collection display can be viewed by appointment until 19 September, 2025: artpool@szepmuveszeti.hu

Cover image: Viktor Kotun