Csaplár Ferenc szerk.: Lajos Kassák / The Advertisement and Modern Typography (1999)

Haystack

presented any truly pregnant message or shown any breakthrough in form. Among the large number of exhibits there are a few more significant experiments of which only a composition by Zoltán Tamássi should be stressed. His message is succinctly clear, his means of expression are direct and strive for a basic effect. Without any stressed pathos, he is clear and outspoken. He does not intend to solve the problems of the world with one single cry but is capable of calling one's attention to the essence. Apart from asserting his pictorial aesthetic, he divides and articulates the plane economically, and his composition meets the requirements of the modern concept of posters from the point-of-view of both craftsmanship and propaganda needs. He was awarded the first prize by the organisers of the exhibition, a decision we can only agree with, and hopefully this recognition will stimulate this seriously talented graphic artist to further development. JULY 1945 HAYSTACK [An excerpt] Last night I took a walk on the Ring alone. My wife being away in Párád, I often venture out of the flat. I am driven by restlessness, and I can more or less satisfy my curiosity. No matter how much I seem to live withdrawn, I cannot extricate myself from the muddle of the world. Not that I revel in it, but that's a story for another day. I take a look at the shop windows; once I had dealt with the matter not only theoretically, but practically too. An appealing shop window is as much part of a decent sales policy, as a tasteful and appetising garnish is part of a good cuisine. The gaudy dumping of motley things is mere window-dressing, a parade of our lack of taste, nothing but shabby matting. A swatch of fabric will never catch our eye if it is heaped together with ten bolts of cloth, but it will if seen in the proximity of a swatch of another fabric, of another colour, if the option to compare is provided, if it can be appreciated with respect to something else. And what is the point of having bottles in butcher's shop windows with labels that promise cooking oil on them but with nothing inside? The empty shelves of another butcher's shop are decorated with honey cakes. There are shop windows where wooden salamis and paper fish turn window-shoppers' stomachs, and there are ones where goods are so much covered by dust that the place resembles a deserted mine. This kind of poverty is more foul than misery. It is not that we are poor but that we dislike washing and combing. Our clothes are stained by stew and jam, our streets are rummaged, our goods bawl and dole under glass. A bazaar-like world palatable to none. 1955 24