Is Contemporary Art Cowardly?

Roundtable Discussion

November 18, 2019 6:00 PM
November 18, 2019 7:30 PM
Taking the anti-regime activities of Orfeo and the Inconnu groups as its starting point, the roundtable discussion explores the question of contemporary art's politicization.
Events
roundtable discussion
Taking the anti-regime activities of Orfeo and the Inconnu groups as its starting point, the roundtable discussion explores the question of contemporary art's politicization.

For a year or two after 2010, the Hungarian art scene was packed with spectacular art protests, but these seem to have disappeared. In this context, a roundtable discussion, one of the closing events of the exhibition Left Turn, Right Turn, will ask the question: can contemporary art be resilient? And, indeed, what is there to be resilient to? Is it enough for art to be political, or should it be building something?

In today's Hungary, it seems unthinkable at first sight to have such deeply and directly anti-establishment groups as Orfeo and Inconnu. Or do they still exist today, we just don’t know about them? Were anti-establishment activities more common in the Kádár era, or is it only posterity that glorifies every little bit of them? And is there anything from the practices of the two groups that can be used today?

Participants:
Virág Lődi (Studio of Young Artists’ Association)
Hajnalka Somogyi (OFF-Biennale Budapest)
Emese Süvecz (art critic)

Moderated by
Kristóf Nagy and Márton Szarvas, curators of the exhibition

The program will be in Hungarian.