Exhibition

Providing an unusual timeliness to the presentation of the selection of photographic works of Miklós Erdély and the Indigo Group are the exhibition entitled Fluxus East – Fluxus Networks in Central Eastern Europe, currently on view at the Ludwig Museum in Budapest, as well as the exhibition arranged from the contemporary art collection of Erste Bank Group at the Institute of Contemporary Art - Dunaújváros, in which Miklós Erdély's individual photographic works are on view within another context. In parallel with this, the volume presenting Miklós Erdély's art pedagogical activity, in which the Indigo works on view in our exhibition were published for the first time, has been released just in the past couple of weeks. The latter were produced by the Indigo Group led by Miklós Erdély for the show arranged in 1984 at the Bercsényi Collegium, entitled That which is Personal and that which is Sacred, and since then have been visible to the public only within the 1998 Miklós Erdély -Life-work exhibition at the Műcsarnok/Kunsthalle Budapest.

With our current exhibition, I would like to display to the public the photographic works of Miklós Erdély and his students in connection with the exhibition and publication events of an international significance in the capital and the region, as they do not have the possibility for continuous presentation. Miklós Erdély (1928–1986) was a prominent and unparalleled figure of the period preceding the political changes, a prohibited, or barely tolerated artist, as well as architect, writer, poet, filmmaker and the leader of a number of art courses between 1975 and 1986. One of the aims of his activity in art pedagogy, by his own admission, was to “produce the milieu in which it is worth working at all.” He regarded his students as the best critics of his own work. We present here one of the results of this prolific and critical collaboration and collaborative thinking in an ensemble of the material of the sole (photo-)exhibition that has survived of the Indigo Group and the photographic works of their master, in a never before seen arrangement.

Available in the gallery for the duration of the exhibition is the volume: Kreativitási gyakorlatok, Fafej, Indigo. Erdély Miklós művészetpedagógiai tevékenysége 1975–1986 (Creativity Exercises, Fantasy Developing Exercises (FAFEJ) and Inter-Disciplinary-Thinking (InDiGo), Miklós Erdély’s art pedagogical activity, 1975-1986. Written and compiled by: Sándor Hornyik and Annamária Szőke. Published by: Research Institute of Art History of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA) – Gondolat Publishers – 2B Foundation – Miklós Erdély Foundation).
The exhibition has been realised with the collaboration of the Miklós Erdély Foundation.

Miklós Erdély: Metaphor I, 1972, estate of Miklós Erdély