1987. április (33-52. szám) / HU_BFL_XIV_47_2
®raS 24/0 üttl« Ru»bd| Street, LONDON, ItfC.Í • Ttl.Oi-üO z< 26 • G. krasaó 41/1987 /e/ 12th April, 1987 Another exhibition of the INCOMU Group Yesterday afternoon in a priváté fiat in Budapest the independent artist group INCOMU opened its exhibition entitled "Montage and Poster. Hommage a Chester Carlson". (The American physicist Chester Carlson created in 1938 the photocopying - in the Hungárián terminology xerox - machine). On the exhibition 45 political posters of Peter Bokros and Tamás Molnár - two members of the group - were displayed. These artworks - in the words of Tamás Molnár - "are born from the marriage of Max Ernst's Dadaist idea, the montage, and the first poster by Toulouse-Lautrec"; they were made by collage and montage technique, then took their unified shape by photocpying and colouring. Bokros and Molnár clipped the component parts of their montages from joumals and magazines of widely different origins in time and space and welded them together intő a unity of suggestive effect. The artworks reflect either in a direct or in an associative way, the reality and the wounds of the world of the last decades. Part of the posters recalls the memory of the 1956 revolution, e.g. the series of pictures showing the evolution of mán, gradually drawing himself up to an erect posture, the last stage of development being young armed insurgents in October 1956, standing on a lorry. The title of the picture is "1956. Trend.". On the poster entitled "A Star is Born", insurgents stand on a red star fallen apart, with an enormous bear snapping in the background. More than one poster depicts the cruel terror in Irán; China, Litya, international terrorism or personally Gorbachev, Reagan, Brezhnev, Qadhafi, Mao Tse-tung, Chou En-lai are exposed.There is on show, e.g., aone-legged Gorbachev surrounded by tiny Soviet flags, knocking with his crutches at a door with the inseription "Humán Rights". The artists cut out most of the pictures from magazines of the Western world, which they never had a look at, bút the pictures gained an Eastem European meaning in their montages. About forty people attended the opening of the exhibition. A short opening speech was made by Tamás Molnár. "There is no political movement or party in these days", he said, "which could allow itself nőt to represent its ideas on the lev el of simple visuality. The argument is alsó true vice-versa: there is no collective, community art, which could do without the agitative médium of the poster. We should have liked to add a few practical ideas to this basic truth, be- causetoday, beyond the samizdat bút on the hither side of Street action and open political agitation, it is timely and necessary fór the idea of democracy to be represented by convincing and impressive pictures thus tuming them intő a force capable to move masses." The INCONNU group started its activity in Szolnok, then they moved to Budapest four years ago because of the ever increasing police persecution aimed against them. According to their programme, the artist*s mission in Eastern Europe is to assist public activity by means of the political art. Members of the group had fines of 5 - 5.000 forints imposed on them on 6 April,hardly a week ago, because of their international graphic árts competition called "The Fighting City" announced to commemorate the 1956 revolution; after a house search and confiscation of the pictures the charge was lack of official permis- sión fór the arrangement of the exhibition. On the same day the youngest member of the group, the 23 years old Róbert Pálinkás, had his assistant director’s contract cancelled in the Film Stúdió. The INCONNUGroup arranged again its poster exhibition opened yesterday without any permission.
