Active Diagrams. Avant-Garde Network-Building Strategies
27 October 2018 – 12 May 2019

Opening: 26 October 2018, 5–7.30 pm
Venue: Petőfi Literary Museum–Kassák Museum (Fő tér 1, Budapest 1033)

Hungarian and international research on the Avant-garde has recently shown a keen interest in issues of ‘the network’ and ‘the journal’, which also happen to shed light on each other. Our exhibition links the two topics through an analysis of network diagrams illustrating the interrelationships between avant-garde journals of the 1920s. In the international communication of these journals, written predominantly in national languages, such diagrams were primarily a way to position themselves within the network. Besides giving a clear picture of the dynamically shifting relations between journals, this code system, accessible for everyone, also functioned as a reality construct: it generated new relationships and actively shaped cultural and social spaces in Europe and worldwide.

Welcome speeches by Gergely Prőhle, Director General of the Petőfi Literary Museum, Balázs Bús, Mayor of Óbuda-Békásmegyer and the main financial supporter of the exhibition, and Zsuzsanna Lénárt, Head of Office of the General Delegation of the Government of Flanders, financial supporter of the exhibition.

After the opening the curators briefly introduce the exhibition in Hungarian language. This is followed by a panel discussion on networks of avant-garde magazines with Hubert van den Berg (Univerzita Palackého, Olomouc), Adriaan Gonnissen (Mu.Zee, Oostende), Eszter Balázs (PIM–Kassák Museum), Gábor Dobó (PIM–Kassák Museum), and Merse Pál Szeredi (PIM–Kassák Museum).

Curated by Eszter Balázs, Gábor Dobó, Edit Sasvári and Merse Pál Szeredi

Designed by Klára Rudas

The exhibition is supported by the government of Óbuda-Békásmegyer – Mayor Balázs Bús and the Delegation of the Government of Flanders.

The exhibition was prepared as a part of the research project of the Petőfi Literary Museum–Kassák Museum entitled “Lajos Kassák’s Avant-Garde Journals from an Interdisciplinary Perspective (1915–1928)”, supported by the National Research, Development and Innovation Office, Project No. K-120779.