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)

Gergely Prőhle: Introduction

milieu provided the ideal conditions for newcomers to explore their full potential (even when living in relative poverty), and also keep in touch with the ideas of their Western contemporaries.

The exhibitions focusing on Kassák’s Vienna years highlight a period from the oeuvre that is highly significant from the point of view of Hungarian intellectual history. Adaptation vs. independence and the relationship between these two strategies is of course a dilemma faced not only by Kassák, and not only there and then. In this period, Kassák’s choices, the transformation of his style, voice, and political views turned him into a unique figure of 20th-century Central Europe.

The volume follows the logic of the three exhibitions and traces this process by demonstrating the power of individuality and presenting the work of “Kassákism's high priest”, yet simultaneously highlighting the importance of networking. It emphasizes that contact with European artistic trends does not automatically elevate one above the others, and that one can become an epoch-making artist even if he or she was born in the Eastern half of Europe. At the same time however, Kassák’s later fate and the reception of his work also shows how difficult it is to stay consistent in this region, and how circumstances can overpower even the most original personality.

Gergely Prőhle Director General of Petőfi Literary Museum

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