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)

György Tverdota: 2x2 - The Journal Edited by Lajos Kassák and Andor Németh (1922)

THE CONCEPT OF “PERMANENT MODERNITY” IN 2*2

The outlook of 2*2 co-editor Andor Németh may be termed “permanent modernity", comprising openness to the successive and mutually-exclu- sive layers of emerging movements. As a disciple of “permanent modernity”, Németh regarded the artists, critics and readers of the MA circle, even though he had a close association with them, as narrow-minded and dogmatic. He saw his values as being embodied in the art of Apollinaire, which seemed to him to embrace all of modernity from the tradition of romantic lyricism to Cubism, and of course including Surrealism, a term Apollinaire had coined during the summer of 1917. The concept of “permanent modernity” also applied to Kassák as a poet, not in his approach to organizing a movement. Kassák pursued scorched-earth tactics as an editor, but his most successful avant-garde poem, The Horse Dies the Birds Fly Away, which was published in 2*2, bears traces of every major ‘ism’ (Simultanism, Expressionism, Dadaism and Constructivism) and everything from “walking poems” to words without meaning and pseudo-syntax. It is thus an eloquent exposition of Németh’s ideal of "permanent modernity”. [Fig. 3]

[3.] Imre Göndör, Caricature of Andor Németh, 1922, pencil on paper, 20*21,5 cm, Petőfi Literary Museum, Budapest

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