Parallel Session 10.

Chair: Gábor Dobó

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Judit Galácz

Theatre on paper: MA, Musik- und Theaternummer, 1924

The Hungarian avantgarde magazine MA published a special issue in September of 1924. This publication, titled „Musik und Theaternummer” focused on the innovations of avant-garde theatre. The aim of Lajos Kassák, the editor, was to present those important ideas and artists he thought to be the most relevant reformers in their field. The publication came out in an exceptional time and context: Lajos Kassák emigrated from Hungary to Vienna after the fall of the Soviet Republic in Hungary, and he worked with a group of young Hungarian artists. They worked in a marginalized situation however, they made efforts to join international artistic circles and discussions. This issue was also a part of these trials which came out at the same time when the International Theatre Exhibition took place in Vienna. I want to demonstrate that this topic and discussion on artistic forms of theatre and music calling the borders of traditional fine arts into question, could appear only in such an independent medium like MA. In order to show this, I want to present those artists and ideas which were displayed in this special issue, and the way they fit to the artistic program of Lajos Kassák and his magazine.

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Maria Anna Rogucka

BLOK, Praesens, and a.r. group circle: Constructing graphic layouts for Polish and international works of art, manifestos, and poetry in the avant-garde journals

The majority of communist publishing in interwar Poland has its traces in the underground, as the Communist Party of Poland was not legalised and disapproved by the governmental authorities. However, not only a daily paper and periodicals were published by the Party, but also special issues illustrating cultural-social press materials were available in avant-garde circuits. The Szczuka-Żarnowerówna duo, linked to the communist movement since 1923, durably defined the latter's modern graphic design. Thus, the two centers - the radical Left, represented mainly by Mieczysław Szczuka and Teresa Żarnowerówna, founders of the BLOK group, and secondly by the architects, which in 1926 founded the group Praesens - formed the postulates and initiatives in favor of clarity and the functioning of the printer’s art. The latter included former Blokists, such as Władysław Strzemiński, Henryk Stażewski, Karol Kryński, etc. In a developing publishing market, the visual styles of progressive printing work – and those who wished to move as progressive – gained momentum in these years in a social and cultural publication scene, which was more and more polarized by political divisions. The paper would aim to trace the reforms in the revolutionary graphic layout and typography of the radical communist periodicals such as Nowa Kultura, Dźwignia, Miesięcznik Literacki, as well as to investigate the developed designs of books and covers of legally operating communist cooperative Książka, and graphically designed volumes of leftist and proletarian poetry during the interwar period.

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Ágnes Anna Sebestyén

Centring around modern architecture: The notions of centre and periphery in relation to the Hungarian architectural magazine Tér és Forma

Architectural periodicals were the major means of transferring textual and visual information about the current production, discourses, and problems of architecture during the interwar era. Illustrated magazines were widely available at that time, and the sites of architectural production were transformed. The immaterial sites of architectural publications became equally important as the construction site itself. (Beatriz Colomina) This transformation shaped the perception and reception of architecture, and expanded the scope of access to contemporary architectural production from a geographical and a social perspective. The networks of modern architects and architectural periodicals created a platform, where the notions of centre and peripheries were increasingly challenged. The Hungarian architectural journal Tér és Forma (Space and Form, 1928–1948) is an adequate example for considering centre–periphery relations. It was a monthly periodical, which became the major organ of modern architecture in Hungary under the editorship of the architect Virgil Bierbauer (also known as Virgil Borbíró) between 1928 and 1942. In my paper, I focus on two aspects of the centre–periphery notions in connection with Tér és Forma. Firstly, I examine the position of the magazine in the international network of architectural periodicals considering Bierbauer’s professional connections and cultural orientation as well as the role of other agents in architectural transfers on an international level. Secondly, I analyse whether Tér és Forma maintained the already formulated canon of modern architecture, and how it contributed to shaping the canon of modern architecture in Hungary. I also highlight the relations of dominant discourses and local issues, which shaped what was considered central or peripheral in the pages of Tér és Forma.