International Hungary!: György Galántai’s Networking Strategies

This paper focuses on György Galántai’s networking strategies during the socialist period in Hungary. Beginning with the Balatonboglár Chapel Studio exhibitions (1970–1973) and ending with the discussion of Artpool, founded by Galántai and Julia Klaniczay in 1979, the paper considers the position of experimental art in Hungary in the 1970s and 1980s and Galántai’s struggles with the authorities. In analyzing the ways in which samizdat publications and the mail art network offered modes of resistance and alternative spaces for artistic exchanges, I propose that those experimental forms of art expanded artists’ communication by means of metonymy, conveying corporeal sovereignty among artists across geographical boundaries.

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