COURAGE

Підключення Колекцій

Tamás Király (1950-2014) was an avantgarde fashion designer (Király often referred to himself as “a clothing sculptor” - “ruhaszobrász”). He grew up in the countryside (Gyöngyös), and he studied decoration and then later worked as an exhibition and window display designer. Beginning in the late 1970s, Király gradually became obsessed with fashion design. Initially, he worked as a decorator at a gallery. He then turned to a fashion boutique launched by the fashion designer Gizi Koppány in the centre of Budapest called “New Art Studio,” until Koppány emigrated to Berlin in 1988. The boutique was visited by many artists for whom Koppány designed different kinds of costumes. The boutique also had another interesting feature: it had live window displays created by Tamás Király with live models.  From this spot, he started his first “fashion walk” in 1981 (followed by many others), crossing the downtown area of Budapest to FMK (Fiatal Művészek Klubja, “Club for Young Artists”), of which Király was also a member. During these tours, professional models and his acquaintances took a walk wearing flashy and extravagant clothes designed by him. According to Király, these walks also served as a counterpoint to the grey, boring visual appearance of the city and its inhabitants (the socialist clothing industry provided only a poor assortment of garments).

FMK was an important venue of the 1980s Budapest art scene. Király was also part of the circle of conceptual artist Miklós Erdély. In 1983, he organised his first fashion show at FMK under the title “Hidden fashion.” Generally, avantgarde fashion in the 1980s did not exist in Hungary. Király was the only person who represented this kind of attitude and aesthetics.

Király constantly tried to question the boundaries of fashion design, performance, and the visual arts, which were strongly influenced by the cultural and social context of the 1980s, when new cultural tendencies (e.g. “new wave” bands and the Albert Einstein Committee, which represented a new kind of Gesamtkunstwerk) had emerged. His oeuvre was not related to politics or ideology directly, but the act of reusing, or re-appropriating political symbols (for example in the case of the Red star dress, etc.) and his subversive performances always contained critical elements. Beginning in the middle of the 1980s, Király started to organize shows in Berlin (1984, 1988) and New York (1985), and he gained international fame. Even the magazine Stern called him the “Gautier of Eastern Europe.”[ Király might have got more recognition abroad, but he decided to remain in Hungary. Simultaneously, Király created four different thematic fashion shows at the Petőfi Hall (Baby’s Dreams 1985, Boy’s Dreams 1986, Animal’s Dreams 1987, and Király’s Dreams 1989). During the performances, underground bands like URH, Kontroll Csoport, and Sziámi played music, and the “unwearable” clothes were presented by ordinary people of Budapest. Additionally, beginning in the 1980s, Király extended his activities by creating dresses for theatre plays and movies.

Philosopher János Kis (1943–) was a prominent member of the democratic opposition, founder of Beszélő (“Speaker”), and founding member and first chair of the Szabad Demokraták Szövetsége (SZDSZ) (“The Alliance of Free Democrats”).

He became familiar with the leftwing mindset and values in his family circle. His father was an antifascist resister and was killed during World War II. Other relatives of his became victims of the Holocaust. His mother worked as a party officer after the war, and numerous communist intellectuals had connections with his family. He studied in the famous Hungarian-Russian language Gorkij school, and he graduated from Eötvös Loránd University in 1967. He belonged to the youngest generation of the philosophical school related to György Lukács. He joined the state party in 1966. He criticized Marxism on scientific grounds, and because of this, he was banned from the party and was sacked from his workplace, the Philosophy Institute of Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He worked as a freelance translator.

In the late 1970s, he began to participate in the democratic opposition. He belonged to the inner circle of thinkers who were critical of the system, and he was regarded as a leading figure. He signed the Charta ’77 in 1977 and in 1979. Events in Poland shaped his thinking, and his knowledge of Polish made it easier for him to read the foreign samizdats. He held lectures at the Monday Free university in the 1980s, and he was one of the contributors to the István Bibó memorial book in 1981. In the same year, working together with others, he helped establish the most important samizdat journal, Beszélő (“Speaker”), and he became the editor-in-chief. He participated in the Monor Meeting.

It was understood among dissenters that János Kis and György Bence regularly worked at the library of the Academy of Science. The smoking room of the library was a special meeting point for people who belonged to the opposition. Kis and Bence were underground celebrities and symbols of meaningful, reflective opposition to the communist system, as philosopher Gáspás Miklós Tamás noted.

Vincas Kisarauskas is well known not only as a painter, but also as monumental artist, graphic artist, set designer and art critic. His first exhibition was closed down by the goverment, and his book illustrations were accused of Formalism in the local media. In 1963, the KGB opened a file on him, noting that 'the creative work of Vincas Kisarauskas negatively affects young people, especially students at the Art Institute.' There were attempts by the authorities and censors to marginalise the artist. However, he is a well-known proponent of the Lithuanian school of ex-libris.

Ferenc Kisbarnaki Farkas (1892–1980) was a general in the Hungarian Army and together with Count Pál Teleki served as the main organizer of World Scout Jamboree that took place in Gödöllő in 1933. From 1942 until his death, Kisbarnaki Farkas held the position of chief scout in the Hungarian Scout Association and remained the main preserver of Teleki’s legacy. As an army general, Kisbarnaki Farkas left Hungary for Germany in 1945 and following the capitulation was charged with oversight of the affaires of Hungarian soldiers held in POW camps. Beginning in 1946, he played a leading role in the organization of the Hungarian scouting movement in exile until his death in Germany in 1980.