Károly Hopp-Halász
Museum
Artist
Károly Hopp-Halász
(1946, Paks - 2016, Paks), Hungarian
Original Title
Museum
Date1973
Mediumgelatin silver print on paper
Dimensions29,7 × 21 cm
Classificationsphotograph
Credit LinePrivate collection, long-term loan to Kunsthalle Praha
DescriptionHungarian experimental artist Károly Hopp-Halász began making art in the late 1960s. The conceptualist tendencies of the 1970s led him to incorporate the influences of conceptual art, action art, and land art into his abstract practice. Another significant current of his oeuvre was experimentation with photography, film, body art, and video art. Due to his artistic focus, as well as his sexuality, Hopp-Halász was isolated from normalized social life, becoming an overlooked figure of the contemporary Hungarian art scene. His style was shaped by the avantgarde tradition, new conceptual tendencies, and his personal experience of having to hide his sexual identity, with homosexuality being a taboo topic in Hungary at the time. His work primarily focuses on geometric composition and its connection with the human body, conceptualized through Hopp-Halász’s personal mythology. Other important elements of his art are seriality and repetition, which evidence the conceptual and processual dimension of his approach. A formative environment for Hopp-Halász’s artistic practice was the art group Pécsi Mühely, of which he was a member alongside Ferenc Ficzek, Károly Kismányoky, Sándor Pinczhelyi, and Kálmán Szíjárto. Pécsi Mühely was based in the southern Hungarian city of Pécs, which was a hotspot for innovative artistic activity between 1969 and 1980. In their collective experiments, the group built on the ideas of the Bauhaus school and on the tradition of geometric abstraction, combining traditional and contemporary forms of geometric art with the tendencies of land art. A particularly important element of the group’s activities was photography, used to document their land art projects. During their early years, Pécsi Mühely also engaged with the movements of op art and pop art, which, in the Hungarian, context lacked a consumerist culture to thematize. Hopp-Halász primarily appropriated these influences in his self-reflective visual experiments which explored the relationship between mass communication and individual human existence. He also used photography to create experimental, ephemeral compositions conceived as a tribute to László Moholy-Nagy and demonstrating Hopp-Halász’s personal inclination toward narrative and work with his own body, which he used to reflect the societal oppression of the gay community. In the first half of the 1970s, he regularly created what he termed photo actions. An important element of his constructivist and conceptual work was his own body, which he used to create innumerable variations of geometric body art* as well as to refer to his own identity. Hopp-Halász also had an intimate yet critical relationship with television as a medium used by the contemporary political regime to purposely manipulate society. Placing his own image inside the television screen, he deliberately drew attention to himself. One of his most famous works was the series Modulated Television (1972–1973), where layered geometric patterns on a transparent foil covering screen showing a television broadcast, thus reshaping conventional television imagery and liberating it from the context of the state’s official politics and aesthetics. During the 1980s, he primarily worked in the styles of post-geometry and Neo Geo. The series Structure Variations (1987–1988) was based on the motif of a dot as a symbol of purely geometric thought and the foundational element of Hopp-Halász’s mythology; meanwhile, Open Geometry (1987) combined geometric painting with photographic fragments of the nude male body. Hopp-Halász’s late oeuvre mainly comprises digital paintings and computer prints.
In reaction to the absence of exhibition opportunities for avantgarde artists in Hungary, Hopp-Halász decided to found his own museum, which he termed simply “Museum” while referring to his personal archive as a “Mini-Museum”. This politically and institutionally autonomous museum platform took many forms. Hopp-Halász also developed the idea through an action, which took place in 1973 in the garden of his artist friend Brún Gellér. It comprised mason jars used as display cases for his own miniature geometric objects conceived as models of artworks, thus combining the avantgarde and the public world with the private, domestic, and rural space, and simultaneously raising questions regarding the protection of artistic values and their institutional and museological mediation in an era defined by a lack of societal freedom. This work intentionally referenced the principle of “artists’ museums”, presented at documenta 5 in Kassel (1972). Hopp-Halász would later create more radical pieces, titled The Museum of Present and Future I-II, which did not incorporate models of artworks, instead only comprising the names of his favourite artists as labels on injection ampoules. These works critiqued the import of Western art as an instant serum of sorts, which remained unable to adequately reflect local social issues.
Károly Hopp-Halász (1946, Paks – 2016, Budapest) was born in the Hungarian city of Paks, where he spent most of his life and worked as an educator at the local cultural centre. Hopp-Halász attended the Muvészeti Gimnázium art high school in Pécs from 1962 to 1965, studying decorative painting. He was a founding member of the art group Pécsi Mühely (Pécs Workshop), active between 1968 and 1980, which drew on the ideas of the Bauhaus school. In 1972, he travelled around Western Europe, where he became acquainted with the Fluxus movement and contemporary conceptual art, and also visited the docuemnta 5 exhibition in Kassel (1972), curated by Harald Szeeman, which essentially became a series of performances and events. In 1971, he was selected among the artists who were meant to feature in an ultimately unrealized exhibition of Hungarian contemporary art, curated by Lászlo Beke. Between 1972 and 1973, Hopp-Halász took part in the gatherings and exhibitions at the chapel in Balatonboglár. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, he also organized numerous exhibitions of art and applied art. From 1974 to 1979, he worked as a graphic designer and exhibition organizer at the Janus Pannonius Múzeum in Pécs. The vast majority of his artistic and organizational activities were linked to his hometown, where he initiated the creation of the Experimental Visual Art Camp of Paks (1979/1980). In 1979, he participated in the exhibition Works and Words at the De Appel arts centre in Amsterdam. After the revolution, Hopp-Halász travelled to study in Rome on a scholarship from the Collegium Hungarium. In his native Paks, he founded the art gallery Paksi Képtár, directing it from 1991 to 2006. Today, Hopp-Halász’s work is included in the collections of institutions such as the Herman Ottó Múzeum in Miškovec, Janus Pannonius Múzeum in Pécs, the Artpool in Budapest, the Ludwig Múzeum – Museum of Contemporary Art in Budapest, the LIMA in Amsterdam, the Cavallini in Florence, the Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum in Graz, the Marinko Sudac Collection in Zagreb, and the Kampa Museum in Prague. Hopp-Halász also received several awards and recognitions for his work, including the Order of Merit of the Hungarian Republic (1996), the Order of Merit of the Hungarian Republic for his services to the city of Paks (1996), the Fine Artists’ Prize of the Soros Foundation (1997), and the Mihály Munkácsy Prize (2006).
In reaction to the absence of exhibition opportunities for avantgarde artists in Hungary, Hopp-Halász decided to found his own museum, which he termed simply “Museum” while referring to his personal archive as a “Mini-Museum”. This politically and institutionally autonomous museum platform took many forms. Hopp-Halász also developed the idea through an action, which took place in 1973 in the garden of his artist friend Brún Gellér. It comprised mason jars used as display cases for his own miniature geometric objects conceived as models of artworks, thus combining the avantgarde and the public world with the private, domestic, and rural space, and simultaneously raising questions regarding the protection of artistic values and their institutional and museological mediation in an era defined by a lack of societal freedom. This work intentionally referenced the principle of “artists’ museums”, presented at documenta 5 in Kassel (1972). Hopp-Halász would later create more radical pieces, titled The Museum of Present and Future I-II, which did not incorporate models of artworks, instead only comprising the names of his favourite artists as labels on injection ampoules. These works critiqued the import of Western art as an instant serum of sorts, which remained unable to adequately reflect local social issues.
Károly Hopp-Halász (1946, Paks – 2016, Budapest) was born in the Hungarian city of Paks, where he spent most of his life and worked as an educator at the local cultural centre. Hopp-Halász attended the Muvészeti Gimnázium art high school in Pécs from 1962 to 1965, studying decorative painting. He was a founding member of the art group Pécsi Mühely (Pécs Workshop), active between 1968 and 1980, which drew on the ideas of the Bauhaus school. In 1972, he travelled around Western Europe, where he became acquainted with the Fluxus movement and contemporary conceptual art, and also visited the docuemnta 5 exhibition in Kassel (1972), curated by Harald Szeeman, which essentially became a series of performances and events. In 1971, he was selected among the artists who were meant to feature in an ultimately unrealized exhibition of Hungarian contemporary art, curated by Lászlo Beke. Between 1972 and 1973, Hopp-Halász took part in the gatherings and exhibitions at the chapel in Balatonboglár. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, he also organized numerous exhibitions of art and applied art. From 1974 to 1979, he worked as a graphic designer and exhibition organizer at the Janus Pannonius Múzeum in Pécs. The vast majority of his artistic and organizational activities were linked to his hometown, where he initiated the creation of the Experimental Visual Art Camp of Paks (1979/1980). In 1979, he participated in the exhibition Works and Words at the De Appel arts centre in Amsterdam. After the revolution, Hopp-Halász travelled to study in Rome on a scholarship from the Collegium Hungarium. In his native Paks, he founded the art gallery Paksi Képtár, directing it from 1991 to 2006. Today, Hopp-Halász’s work is included in the collections of institutions such as the Herman Ottó Múzeum in Miškovec, Janus Pannonius Múzeum in Pécs, the Artpool in Budapest, the Ludwig Múzeum – Museum of Contemporary Art in Budapest, the LIMA in Amsterdam, the Cavallini in Florence, the Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum in Graz, the Marinko Sudac Collection in Zagreb, and the Kampa Museum in Prague. Hopp-Halász also received several awards and recognitions for his work, including the Order of Merit of the Hungarian Republic (1996), the Order of Merit of the Hungarian Republic for his services to the city of Paks (1996), the Fine Artists’ Prize of the Soros Foundation (1997), and the Mihály Munkácsy Prize (2006).
