Magyar Hírek, 1986 (39. évfolyam, 1-26. szám)
1986-10-11 / 20. szám
programme included the introduction of a luxury tax and death duties, the taxation of monopolies and privileged companies, anil the abolishion of protectionist tariffs. He also demanded the reform of the public service, the punishment of corrupt officials and of the practice of votebuying, and the prosecution of employers, who exerted pressure on workers at the time of elections. As time passes all of these demands — with the exception of one—became law. The newspaper king The World was the only eight -page daily of the country sold for two cents. A never-beforo experienced social consciousness, determination and strength emanated from it. Pulitzer was not a revolutionary, not even a socialist. He also rejected anarchy. He thought he could express the hope of democracy in enlightened capitalism. He himself endeavoured to clear the road with exposures and satire. He rendered a great service by educating the ignorant masses. He taught them democracy, the importance of their votes, and maintained that America could be true to its promise. He adjusted his journalistic methods to the needs of the masses. He did not give up politics either. He became a Congressman representing the ninth district of the State of New York. From December 1885 to April 1886 he sat in the Congress of the United States of America as the first Representative of Hungarian birth. Pulitzer's heritage The role he played in the erection of the Statue of Liberty in 1886 further increased his reputation. One hundred years ago Pulitzer helped to ensure the enthusiastic reception of Mihály Munkácsy the painter in America. A few years later Pulitzer lost his sight. In spite of this, he retained control over his newspapers. He died on the 29th of October 1911 in Charleston, South Carolina, where his yacht was moored at the time. The St Tjouis Dispeitch is still owned by his family. Joseph Pulitzer gained distinction in institut ionalising the training of journalists. He regarded journalism as a profession, and financed the establishment of a separate department of journalism at Columbia University. He also entrusted trusteeship of the Joseph Pulitzer Foundation to that university directing that an independent committee should ward prizes for outstanding journalistic, literary, history writing and musical achievements each year. The prizes are of 8 1,000 dollars for journalists and $ 500 for writers and musicians which is far exceeded by fringe benefits that aecrue to the prize winners. Besides Steinheck, Hemingway, O'Neill, there have also been American journalists of Hungarian birth among the Pulitzer prize winners including Louis Stark, Bobért C. Toth, and the caricaturist Paul Szép. In his bequest Pulitzer left large amounts to the New York Philharmonic Society and the Metropolitan Museum of Art too. The fountain of the Central Park is his gift, as is the handshaking statue of Washington and Lafayette in Paris. The fact that the illumination of the Statue of Liberty is payed for by the foundation established by him is symbolic. ANDRÁS CSILLAG A striking-statue for Kalocsa CHKONOS 8, Nicolas Schoffer’s cybernetic programmeil light-tower was erected in the main square of Kalocsa in December 1982. Magyar Hírek reported the event at the time. Now did he come to build a cybernetic statue in his home town, how was it received, what happened since to Miklós Schöffer V These were the questions I asked the artist in his Paris home. “After my first visit to Hungary (1 went there to take part at a class reunion) Dr. István Geri, Chairman of the City Council approached me and proposed that they would establish a museum, or a memorial house at Kalocsa, provided 1 would provide material for it. I sent what is still in display there. When it was ready I said that I wanted to build a cybernetic statue there. When they secured the money l sent the documentation, they constructed it, and I went to its unveiling. The whole of Kalocsa was in the main square for the event and I spoke about the essence of cybernetics and of the functioning of the statue. If there is a city in the world today where they know what cybernetics is, that is Kalocsa. The people keep coming, they talk into the microphone, see the light and movement reactions, and everybody is happy. A record number of visitors call at the museum. More than 120,000 came to see it in four years. Immediately afterwards they built a small house for me behind the museum, also on the suggestion of István Geri. I can spent all my summers there.” "Do you work there also, or rest only?" “1 only take my holidays there. I usually spend a month in Kalocsa as the guest of the city. What particularly moved me and could make me folget the medieval conditions which ruled Kalocsa was that the Jewish cemetery was restored including the grave of my father, where fresh flowers bloom all the time.” "Are your works on show right now?" “No one-man show. But there is a great exhibition of the works of members in the Jaquemart- André Museum, the French Academy’s own museum. I have a statue exhibited there.” The Academy organizes a major exhibition every two or three years, where every member of the Academy can exhibit what they chose. Nicolas Schöffer was the first member of the French Academy who was not of French birth. The only other now is Eugene Ionesco, the dramatist. Nicolas Schöffer took a holiday in August 1985 in Kalocsa, and left early in September. When he got back to Paris he was struck by illness on the 9th of September, which left his right paralysed. It is a tragedy, no matter to whom it happens, but it is particularly hard on an artist. Nicolas Schöffer did not give in. He soon got on his feet, he learnt to walk, to climb stairs, but he could not regain the use of his right arm. With terrific willpower he began to work again, this time with his left, which he had never before used for drawing. As a finger exercise he produced several thousand ealligraphies. “I discovered innumerable opportunities not only in sculpture,’ but also in theory. I am developing new theories on surface and apace, and my paper will be published in Les Cahiers Pedagogiques. I used to write before and have published more than teil books, but would never have enlarged upon thesé new theories if this had not happened to me. Writing definitions was always a mania of mine. I said a word should not be used before we have a proper definition of it. I have written more than twenty-five definitions and I will continue. I am particularly interested in space and time. This is simply fantastic. One simply cannot imagine what the surface is. When you have a sheet of blank paper in front of you and you put a dot on it you have an infinite choice where to put the dot. The dots will make a line, and the lines a composition, a drawing . . . This is the subject of one of my theories.” “Was it difficult to switch to your left hand?" “No, not at all because an artist cannot stand down and I had to continue working. But my wife, she is an incredible woman. She helped me to start working again right at the hospital. She did everything I could not yet do myself. There is a French expression: ‘prologement biologique’; every means one uses so that it furthers his possibilities is a prologement biologique. In my case my wife was the means. I can count on her not only on my work, but in everything. For instance, she invented shoes for me, whicb l can easily put on by myself. I could go on listing all the things in which she helps me: from the kitchen to secretarial work or to my latest design, the striking statue of Kalocsa, the sketches for which I made last September, and which she will finish.” "You said striking statue. What does tlmt mean?" “It solves an important sociological problem. It is a statue the plates of which people will have to strike. A microphone receives the sound of blows struck on plates of varying thickness, and the vibrations change cybernetically, bringing the stat > ><> to motion and making it emanate lights, which depend on the sound generated. People, particularly the young, can come and have a good blow, as often as they wish, in the plates of the statue instead of turning their emotions against oneanother. This is how aggression, unfortunately a growing problem, becomes transformed and a part of the operation of a work of art.” "I see drawings of other types of statues here too.” “This statue spurts water forward, and fire. The two meet and create a sound. Then I should like to build a Sun statue in Buda, on the small, flat square above the entrance of the Tunnel, in the continuation of the axis of the Chain Bridge so that it would start operating when the sun goes down. This Sun, lit from inside, and of a hight of about ten meters, could be seen splendidly from the bridge as well as from the opposite bank. Ferenc Rátkai, Deputy Minister of Culture was here not long ago, and we discussed the statue, but there is no money available for its erection right now. I hope we will build it some day. However, the striking statue will be built at Kalocsa, and 1 was commissioned here in France also to build a cybernetic neon statue, which will be erected in Lytans.” As we were talking about statues, Schöffer thought of a Gutenberg statue in Strasbourg. “My ancestor was Peter Schöffer, a relative of Gutenberg, and the inventor of printing sheet music. This is noted also on the back of this Gutenberg statue in Strasbourg. A distant Dutch relative of mine discovered this and what is interesting is that I also invented a new way of writing sheet music on computers. So 1 am not the first in the family in this field. If you open the Larousse Encyclopaedia you will find us, Peter and Nicolas side by side. The name Schöffer exists only in this family, nobody but members of the family used it, and as far as I know the family has six living members. Another Peter Schöffer. this ancestor of mine, came to Hungary when the Huguenots were being persecuted and settled in Jánoshalma, where he fell in love with the daughter of the rabbi. The rabbi said he would give his daughter to him in marriage provided he converted to Judaism. Peter did, and the couple was married.” As I bid farewell thanking him for the hospitality and the “Lecture” in the workshop, he made me promise to send him many of the pictures I took, which he would sent to the Kalocsa memorial house. By the time 1 left the home of Nicolas Schöffer night had fallen. On the way to the hotel I could think only about the incredible amount of energy, will to work and struggle the creative urge still present in Nicolas Schöffer. It would be enough even for a budding sculptor. ISTVÁN GERGELY 31
