Free October Festival – Curatorial Guided Tour in Hungarian

The exhibition Left Turn, Right Turn – Artistic and Political Radicalism of late Socialism in Hungary // The Orfeo and the Inconnu Groups examines the social and political context of groups which, because of their artistic and political programs, were drawn either towards the left, or towards the right in their criticism of socialism as it actually existed. The Orfeo group emerged in the wake of the global movements of 1968, while the Inconnu group’s career was profoundly shaped by the underground artistic trends of the 1970s, later turning towards the politics of the dissident groups of the 1980s. Both Orfeo and Inconnu attempted to merge artistic criticism with political radicalism. similarities between the Orfeo and Inconnu groups, the exhibition reveals the social and institutional conditions of radical artistic criticism of the Kádár regime. By having an insight into the art and political ideologies of the two groups, at the end of the tour we can discuss the conditions in which cultural opposition arises and its current potentials.

Extra focus: how did the two groups relate to revolutionary traditions? What did '56 mean for Inconnu and what for Orfeo? How could the canon of socialist history be turned against the regime? What did the anti-imperialist revolutionaries bring to the Hungarian critique of the system?