Balázs Eszter: Art in action. Lajos Kassák's Avant-Garde Journals from A Tett to Dokumentum, 1915-1927 - The avant-garde and its journals 3. (Budapest, 2017)

Merse Pál Szeredi: Kassákism - MA in Vienna (1920-1925)

such a way that the pattern does not necessarily form a system. Certain contacts may break off and reconnect, but this does not influence the structure itself. The concept of the rhizome also highlights the randomness of contacts: for example, in many cases, Kassák only came across reproductions of an artist’s work or their poetry through indirect sources. For MA at this time, it was not personal contacts but joining networks of “new art" that was more important, which is why Kassák did not feel it necessary to request works from artists in person, but rather republished them in Hungarian translation from the various journals and publications that arrived. For example, he reproduced works in MA by Picasso, Léger and other cubist painters, taken not directly from the French artists, but from the first issue of Chilean poet Vincente Huidobro’sjournal Créacion [Creation], It was also indirectly that Kassák learnt of the poems written by Theo van Doesburg’s Dada alter-ego, I. K. Bonset, on “X-pictures" (that is, X-rays), and published them in MA in 1921. Kassák was not yet in contact with De Stijl, but learnt of Van Doesburg’s poetry from a republication of F. T. Marinetti’s futurist journal Poesia [Poetry] based in Rome.16 Naturally, many more such examples could be given, but these instances suffice to show that "virtual” contacts were as important as personal or institutional networks in the broadening of MA's international horizons.

During the first half of the 1920s, avant-garde journals could appear using the new developments in printing technology, with bold typography and a high number of reproductions, and thus their value substantially increased as the primary bearers of information on the “new art”. In Budapest during the First World War, Kassák had already paid great attention to using good quality paper, exacting reproductions and striking cover pages in his journals, but in Vienna, MA appeared in a unique format with exceptional typography. As the number of avant-garde journals boomed, Kassák felt the competition and revised MA’s image in spring 1921. The expressionist header in the style of János Mattis Teutsch was replaced by colourful poster-style lettering, unis Reproductions of artworks by Albert Cleizes, Pablo Picasso and Jacques Lipchitz, Créacion, 1/1., 1921, [n.p.] See the same reproductions in MA, 111., 1922, 21. (Picasso) 11. (Lipchitz) and 22. (Gleizes)

16 I. K. Bonset, X-képek [X-pictures], translated by László Zilahi, MA, 6/6., 1921, 70. Kassák used the publication I. K. Bonset, X-Beelden, Poesia, 1/5-6., 1920, 33. The poem was originally published in De Stijl, 3/7., 1920, 57. Kassák listed the 1920 issues of Poesia among the “publications received" section of the August 1921 issue of MA, but only issues 7-8 of De Stijl from 1921.

17 Kassák understood perfectly the importance of competition, “I think we are one of the most beautiful papers in Europe today", he wrote, immodestly, to a fellow editor in 1921. See the Letter of Lajos Kassák to Ödön Mihályi, Vienna, [Spring] 1921. V. 2293/113. Petőfi Literary Museum, Budapest.

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