Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 27. (Budapest, 2009)

Márta KOVALOVSZKY: Unfinished Process

3. Aranka Hübner Kövület [Fossil], 1976 Silk bourrette and pleated bourrette, 70 x 80 cm reference to a favourite form of the 1920s (ready made). Attalai was an internationally-acclaimed participant in Hungarian conceptualism and - although he did not make an expressly textile concept - progressive contemporary Hungarian textile art benefited from his unsettling thoughts. He took a large piece of felt and broke up the surface with vertical or horizontal cuts and parallel incisions and hung it on the wall; the originally soft, heavy felt was thus freed from the plane, enabling it to behave independently, divided into parts, creating unusual curves and decorative strips projecting into space. (Fig. 4) Other times, he rolled up a pile of coloured pieces of felt and cut off slices, like Christmas beigli, or Swiss roll. At such times, the layers of the "slices" presented a surprisingly varied internal grain depending on the thickness and colour of the felt. With his unorthodox ideas, Attalai discovered new, unknown properties of a traditional textile material. Conceptualism made its appearance in Hungarian textile art in the mid-1970s through the work of Zsuzsa Szenes, who embroidered a Second World War gas mask (Ami használati tárgy volt, most dísz

, [What was once a useful object is now a decoration], 1976)." Whoever had heard Szenes' sigh of complaint, "Other people have their minds full of concepts, I can't think of one!" must have been surprised when they 158