Years of transition: the 1980s in Hungary and Eastern Europe

Project leader: Júliusz Huth, Kristóf Nagy

The aim of the Research Department’s research on the 1980s is a comprehensive examination of the decade’s visual arts in Hungary, taking into account cultural and economic policy-related aspects, as well as international contexts and connections.

The research focuses on studying the transformation of the system of art institutions, the major art-related debates and critical discourses of the decade, the emergence of new painting trends and postmodern theories, the mixing of experimental and underground trends with different fields of art, as well as the Hungarian art scene’s regional and international network of relations. The fact that the members of the research team are participants in the Getty Foundation-funded project Understanding 1989 in East-Central European Art further contributes to the creation of an international context.

The basic research which has been undergoing since 2022 has included a conference entitled The Flowers of Transition – The Art of Hungary in the 1980s, interviews with key figures of the decade, and a detailed study of the literature on art criticism from the 1980s. The objective of this latter endeavour is to compile an anthology summarising the literature of art criticism from this period, with an aim to publish in 2024.

Events that have taken place:

• Crisis or bloom? Debates on Art in the 1980s - Institutional system under the radar: with Gábor Andrási, Tamás Török and Tibor Várnagy – 30. 04. 2024
• How Eastern Europe got the Idea of Contemporary Art? - webinar, 02. 11. 2022
• The Contradictions of 1980s Alternative Art - Lecture of Katja Praznik, Slovenian cultural researcher, 14. 06. 2022
• The Flowers of Transition - The Art of Hungary in the 1980s - conference, 06. 01. - 05. 31. 2022

Image source: photo by György Galántai from the lecture of Miklós Erdély: Democratic Painting (Kossuth Klub, 05.03.1984). Published in Aktuális Levél 9, p. 14, 1984