Hungary: Lie of the year

Hungary: Lie of the year.

Artwork by Marika Schmiedt, in response to the recent statement by Hungary’s Ministry of Public Administration and Justice, denying the findings (by the US State Department’s survey) of Human Rights violations against Roma in Hungary.
http://www.kormany.hu/en/ministry-of-public-administration-and-justice/news/there-is-no-discrimination-against-the-roma-in-hungary

Crisis-Hit Bosnian Museum Begs Diplomats’ Help

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/don-t-let-them-close-us-museum-slogan-say

Elvira Jukic, BIRN, Sarajevo, reports:

“Staff of Bosnia’s Historical Museum posted a banner over their facade on Tuesday urging foreign diplomats not to let local officials let them close.

Staff at the crisis-ridden Historical Museum of Bosnia in Sarajevo posted a banner on their building on February 28 saying “Don’t Let Them Close Us”, targeting a group of foreign ambassadors who visited on Tuesday when it reopened for the week of the Sarajevo Winter Festival.

The goal of the slogan is to raise concern about the tough financial situation in Bosnia’s leading cultural institutions, some of which have been forced to close lately.

The museum curator, Elma Hasimbegovic, told Balkan Insight that each day during the “open-door week” they have had a different target group in mind and a different slogan on the facade.

Tuesday’s slogan deliberately echoed the war-time slogan “Don’t let them kill us”, which was written on the sashes of the girls competiting for the title of Miss Sarajevo in 1993 and addressed to the international community at a time when the Bosnian capital was under Bosnian Serb siege.”

(Image taken from a Feb 2011 post on http://bosniagenocide.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/miss-besieged-sarajevo-dont-let-them-kill-us/)

“Monday’s slogan, “The Musum is not Serbian, Croatian or Muslim – It Is Nobody’s?”, referred to the historic point in 1943 when the Yugoslav Partisans under Josip Tito declared that the future Bosnian republic would not belong to any of those three peoples but to all of them.

Hasimbegovic told Balkan Insight that the museum workers had now concluded that the museum was in fact “nobody’s”, since Bosnian politicians only appeared interested in dealing with issues of interest to one of the three ethnic groups.

The Historical Museum closed its doors in January, citing growing debts, and uncertainty remains over whether funding will ever resume and it will reopen. The Art Gallery of Bosnia closed last year for similar reasons.

The reason for the funding crisis in Bosnia’s cultural institutions is the unresolved issue of which level of government in the divided country is responsible for financing them.

Since the Dayton Peace Accords of 1995, the country has been divided into two autonomous entities, Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Clarity of the funding status of the country’s cultural institutions has never been resolved. Over the past decade and a half they have received funds from a variety of budgets but with no final decision over who has permanent responsibilities for them.

The Historical Museum includes a large collection of documents, photographies, art pieces and other valuable items collected after 1945.”

originally published (without the Miss Besieged Sarajevo Image) on:

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/don-t-let-them-close-us-museum-slogan-say

In honor of the International Women’s Day and the International Day of Roma – Two films by Marika Schmiedt on Okto TV

On the occasion of International Women’s Day on March 8 and the International Day of Roma on April 8, Okto has dedicated three Saturday evenings (starting March 3) to the history of Roma and Sinti in Europe. To kick off this series, Okto is screening two films by Marika Schmiedt, in which she explores the traumatic legacy of the Holocaust of Austrian Roma and Sinti. Starting at 20:00, also on LIVESTREAM!

Eine lästige Gesellschaft / An undesirable Society (2001)

Roma Memento. Zukunft ungewiss? / Roma Memento. Uncertain future? (2011)

re.act.feminism #2 – a performing archive

Archive / Exhibitions / Workshops / 
Performances / Talks / Research 
7 October 2011 — 1 September 2013

“re.act.feminism #2 – a performing archive  is a continually expanding, temporary and living performance archive travelling through six European countries from 2011 to 2013.

It presents feminist, gendercritical and queer performance art by over 120 artists and artist collectives from the 1960s to the beginning of the 1980s, as well as contemporary positions. The research focus is on Eastern and Western Europe, the Mediterranean and Middle East, the US and several countries in Latin America. On its route through Europe this temporary archive will continue to expand through local research and cooperation with art academies and universities. It will also be ‘animated’ through exhibitions, screenings, performances and discussions along the way, which will continuously contribute to the archive.

This web page is designed as a research tool providing information about all artists and activities in short summaries, pictures, texts and tags. It will continue to grow in sync with the ongoing exhibition and archive programme.”

Published on: http://reactfeminism.org/prog_overview.php
Direct Link to the Archive: http://reactfeminism.org/archive.php?l=lb

CIRCLES OF INTERFERENCE. THE MARINKO SUDAC COLLECTION

Exhibition at the Kassák Museum, Budapest:
27 JANUARY – 15 APRIL 2012
Address: Kassák Museum 1033 Budapest, Fő tér 1., Zichy Castle | www.kassakmuzeum.hu

Press Release: (http://www.kassakmuzeum.hu/en/index.php?p=kiallitas&id=9)

“The exhibition Circles of Interference, a collaborative effort between Collection Marinko Sudac, Kassak Museum and Institute for the Research of the Avant-garde, is based on the exchange and cooperative work between the editors of the avant-garde periodicals MA and Zenit, two that were among the most influential in the region at the beginning of the 1920′s. The exhibition covers the issues of networking and expansion of the avant-garde movement and the esthetic of Constructivism that, in between the two wars, had a strong and productive impact on the cultural life of the region. The artworks displayed and the documentation as a whole were selected from the permanent body of works from the Collection. The intention was to reveal the high artistic level of a neglected legacy of historical avant-garde movements to the public and critical eye and to place emphasis on the so far insufficiently recognized channels through witch  radical artistic practice and esthetics of the constructivists has grown to become a decisive influence on the art practices from the second half of the 20th century.

Collection Marinko Sudac contains more than 20 000 artworks and documents which range from personal correspondence to video and film material; it is a sum of the collection’s strategy, started in 2004, with the idea of accumulating exclusively the works of artistic avant-garde from the territory of former Yugoslavia; or, rather, those art practices and cultural phenomena of the region and the world that were, from 1909 until 1989, connected to the avant-garde. During its relatively brief existence and activity, but boasting a dynamic and successful presentation of the historical avant-garde movements in the prestigious museum institutions, the Collection had proven itself as a key player toward the welcomed recognition of the historical avant-garde both within and outside of the region. It helped usher in a new pattern of exhibiting and publishing standards respectful of the proper presentation and popularizing of the avant-garde art. The projects that the Collection has been involved with so far, its collaboration with various museums since 2005, and since 2009 with the Institute for the Research of the Avant-garde, have often been noted as cultural events of a season and have generally elicited unprecedented interest in the media, while they went to break all attendance records.

Beside the preservation of the legacy of the historical avant-garde movements, the Collection’s key mission remains the instigation, organization, publication and presentation of the research and study of various art practices and artists, particularly those that, even in the recent years, were often either forgotten or neglected. In order to successfully spread the results of its research, the Collection had started Edition Sudac —that specializes in publishing high-profile monographs of artists and cultural phenomena that, by their quality and scope, aim to excel over the standardized museum editions. All aspects of the Collection work are gathered in one place, at the Virtual Museum of the Avant-garde Art www.avantgarde-museum.com. The web-site concept and its scope are both novel in the field on the interactive Internet visual art presentation.
By understanding the power and continuity of the avant-garde art, that has by far and large emerged from the international network of its protagonists, the Collection had from he start attempted to expand its field of interest to the neighboring countries. Today it covers artists in the vast region bound by the Baltic Sea on the north and the Black sea on the south; it includes the collection of the Italian futurist manifestos, the avant-garde editions from the Western Europe, and even the pro-Marxist publications from Japan.

Due to particularly vigorous connections between the local and regional artists to their Hungarian counterparts, the Collection’s active research unit had managed to procure a great number of works from the Hungarian artists that now occupy a prominent place in the collection and in the projects that lay ahead. At the moment, the Collection curates works of  the following artists: Déry Tibor, Farkas Molnár, Kassák Lajos, Bortnyik Sándor, Attalai Gábor, Haris  László, Ficzek Ferenc, Kismányoky Károly,  Pinczehelyi  Sándor, Szijártó Kálmán, Halász Károly, Atilla Pálfalusi; and magazines 100%, MA and Munka.”

ON LINE FLUXUS RESEARCH AT ARTPOOL

The Artpool Art Research Center (Budapest), co-founded by György Galántai and Júlia Klaniczay in 1979, holds one of the largest collections of experimental art after WWII, including MAIL ART, FLUXUS, CONCEPTUAL and PERFORMANCE ART, BOOKWORKS etc! They also have an elaborate online archive available for research –>  http://www.artpool.hu

Below is a new addition to the site: Fluxus@Artpool

http://www.artpool.hu/Fluxus/index.html

(screen shot from website, http://www.artpool.hu/Fluxus/index.html, Fluxus “signature cards” with the names of various participating artists. Typography by George Maciunas.)

Need Feminism Today? A Visual Argument for an Affirmative Answer.

“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (1949)

       

(I don’t need balls)

      

       

       

       

       

       

*I took these pictures in Belgrade, Subotica, Budapest, Vienna, and Zagreb (June 2011 – February 2012).

Blog for International Women’s Day

http://www.genderacrossborders.com/blogforiwd/

“Seeds of Death” – Increasing persecution of Sinti and Roma, Fascists on the Rise. The Case of Hungary.

Podcast:
Ungarn: Zunehmende Verfolgung von Sinti und Roma, Faschisten auf dem Vormarsch.
Hungary: Increasing persecution of Sinti and Roma, Fascists on the Rise.

An important podcast (in German) about the rise of extremist anti-Roma violence, racism, homophobia and anti-semitism in Hungary. This is extremely troubling and happening right now in Central Europe. The podcast also discusses how traumatized and violated the Roma are, especially in Gyöngyöspata, where the Hungarian Guard and other nationalists have terrorized the Roma population for a long time. They are building “work camps” there now, schools are segregated, children are followed and harassed, there are repeated demonstrations and acts of violence against Roma…

The discussion also touches on the increasing threats against the LGBT community , censorship of the media, and other anti-democratic measures implemented by the ruling Fidesz government. THIS NEEDS TO STOP!!!!

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The ways in which these kinds of political, social and cultural developments are reminiscent of the rise of fascism in the early twentieth century is demonstrated by artist and activist Marika Schmiedt. See below. An important  and fitting homage to John Heartfield’s “The Seeds of Death/Die Saat des Todes” (1937) and “Adolf the Superman: Swallows Gold and Spouts Junk/Adolf der Übermensch, schluckt Gold und redet Blech” (1932).

Marika Schmiedt (2012)
Also, see Schmiedt’s original painting, circa 1998/1999.

The pod-cast and artwork were originally published on Marika Schmiedt’s blog: http://marikaschmiedt.wordpress.com/2012/02/18/ungarn-zunehmende-verfolgung-von-sinti-und-roma-faschisten-auf-dem-vormarsch/

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In “Waiting for Godot in Sarajevo” (1993), Susan Sontag warned us about IGNORING such political developments:

“Newspaper and radio reporting and, above all, TV coverage have shown the war in Bosnia in extraordinary detail, but in the absence of a will to intervene by those few people in the world who make political and military decisions, the war becomes another remote disaster; the people suffering and being murdered there become disaster “victims.” Suffering is visibly present, and can be seen in closeup; and no doubt many people feel sympathy for the victims. What cannot be recorded is an absence-the absence of any political will to end this suffering: more exactly, the decision not to intervene in Bosnia, primarily Europe’s responsibility…
I do not believe the standard argument made by critics of television that watching terrible events on the small screen distances them as much as it makes them real. It is the continuing coverage of the war in the absence of action to stop it that makes us mere spectators. Not television but our politicians have made history come to seem like re-runs. We get tired of watching the same show. If it seems unreal, it is because it’s both so appalling and apparently so unstoppable...”

MOVING FORWARDS, COUNTING BACKWARDS Exhibition

“MOVING FORWARDS, COUNTING BACKWARDS Exhibition

Duration: 25 February – 25 May 2012
Opening: 25 February 2012 at 1:30 p.m.
Venue: Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporanea, Mexico City

“Moving Forwards, Counting Backwards” is an exhibition project curated by Ivana Bago and Antonia Majača in the framework of the long-term project “WEIYTH: Where Everything is Yet to Happen”. This exhibition will present historical and more recent Central-Eastern European art production in Mexico and Middle America for the first time, including the following works from the Kontakt Art Collection: The Last Futurist Show, 21 paintings (1986) by Kazimir Malevich; Self Fashion Show, a film by Tibor Hajas (1976) and Universal Futorological Questionmark, b/w photograph by Július Koller (1976).

The other participating artists include Chto Delat?, Collective Actions, Gorgona, Igor Grubic, Irwin, Sanja Ivekovic, Andreja Kuluncic, David Maljkovic, Ahmet Ogut, Dan Perjovschi, Anri Sala, Mladen Stilinovic, Nicoline van Harskamp, Zelimir Zilnik, Artur Zmijewski.

Where Everything Is Yet to Happen (WEIYTH) is a long-term, nomadic project, with the intentionally undefined constituents of the equation in its title always able to take on different meanings: the variables of place, time and event change to form multiple combinations and their consequences, according to the context in which each of its editions/fragments takes shape. Its abbreviation – WEIYTH – points to the in-between space where contemporary world, art and thought is situated in a perpetuating gap of the present, poised between promises of the past and an “unthinkable” future. The project questions the very concept of Eastern Europe and resists narratives constructed around „totalitarianism and reppression“ in the East vs. the ‘free expression’ of the artist in the West. Rather, it points to the legacies of the link between art and revolution in ex-socialist countries, articulating art as a primarily socially engaged and transformative practice.”

All info taken from:
http://www.erstestiftung.org/blog/moving-forwards-counting-backwards/