Leben und Arbeit/biography
György Galántai was born in Bikacs, Hungary in 1941. From 1963 to 1967 he studied painting at the College of Fine Arts in Budapest. From 1970 on he organised semi-legal exhibitions, actions and happenings in the chapel of Balatonboglár, which he had rented from the Catholic Church until it was closed down by the police. Galántai experimented with graphic art, visual poetics and sound poetry. In 1978 he send out the call “Please send me information about your activity” to the international Mail Art Network. With the received mail he founded the Artpool archive that – besides its focus on the new and alternative mediums in contemporary arts from the 1960s on – became the most important centre for documentation and research on Mail Art in Middeleastern Europe. After 1989 the archive was opened to the public, and since 1992 it has been receiving financial support from the city of Budapest. Galántai did various Mail Art projects, i.e. an hommage to Ray Johnson, performances (1980 together with Italian Mail Artist Cavellini). In 1983 he published the first issue of the Artpool Letters, and in 1988/89 he received a fellowship of the DAAD in West Berlin.
For some exhibitions he rebuilded works by George Maciunas, like his deformed ping-pong table with Fluxus table tennis rackets.
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György Galántai wurde 1941 in Bikacs in Ungarn geboren. Er studierte von 1963 bis 67 Malerei an der Hochschule für Bildende Kunst in Budapest. Ab 1970 organisierte er halblegale Ausstellungen und Aktionen in der Kapelle von Balatonboglár, die er von der katholischen Kirche gemietet hatte, bis sie 1973 von der Polizei geschlossen wurde. Galántai experimentierte auch mit visueller Poesie und Tondichtung. 1978 versandte er den Aufruf “Please send me information about your activity” im internationalen Mail Art-Netzwerk. Mit dem eingesandten Material begründete er das Artpool-Archiv, das sich zum bedeutendsten Dokumentations- und Forschungszentrum für Mail Art in Mittelosteuropa entwickelt hat. Seit 1989 ist es öffentlich zugänglich und seit 1992 wird es von der Stadt Budapest finanziell unterstützt. Galántai führte verschiedene Mail Art-Projekte aus, u.a. eine Hommage an Ray Johnson, und machte Performances, 1980 z.B. mit dem italienischen Mailartisten Cavellini auf dem Budapester Heldenplatz. 1983 gab er die erste Nummer des Artpool Letters heraus. Er war 1988/89 Stipendiat des DAAD in West-Berlin.
Für Ausstellungen rekonstruierte Galántai auch Werke von George Maciunas, wie dessen verformte Tischtennisplatte mit den Fluxus-Tischtennisschlägern.
Ausgewählte Arbeiten/selected works
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Literatur (Auswahl)/literature (selection)
- Galántai, György: “György Galántai antwortet auf Fragen: Fluxus + Konzeptuell = Kontextuell”, in: Katalog Fluxus East, Künstlerhaus Bethanien Berlin 2007, S. 141 – 156.
Links
- Artpool Archive (en)
[…] In addition to her role as publisher, she was also one of the early producers of artist postage stamps (artistamps), and was included in the first exhibition of the medium, James Warren Felter’s, “Artists’ Stamps and Stamp Images”, held at Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, in 1976. She was one of fourteen contributors representing the United States in the exhibition. She continued her artistamp activity over the years, curating the “First California Artists Stamp Show” in 1995, and an exhibition on women artistamp producers for The Stamp Art Gallery in San Francisco in the 1990s. In 2007, Tavenner contributed to and attended the Budapest, Hungary, National Museum of Fine Arts exhibition, “ParaStamp: Four Decades of Artistamps from Fluxus to the Internet”, organized by the Artpool Research Center (György Galántai). […]
[...] founder of the Artpool archive Gyorgy Galántai introduced Bokros and members of his group to the Mail Art network. Inconnu experimented with [...]
[...] John Held Jr., USA, Araceli Zúñiga and César Espinosa Vera, Mexico, Roberto Farona, España, and György und Julia Galántai, [...]
[...] Gahlinger-Beaune and Giovanni Bianchini. Bidners’ entire collection was bequeathed to the ARTPOOL Archive in Budapest, Hungary. [...]