Volume IX, Issue 1-2, 2011/1-2

Although representative surveys haven't been made until now, it is highly probable that the growing number of art journals is inversely proportional with the number of their readers. In this introduction two surveys are confronted, realized by two critics from two different contexts. The first one is written by István Szabó and it presents the situation of the Hungarian theatre critics. The other research was made by the German theatre critic, Vasco Boenisch which shows that the critics have no self reflection when speaking about their work. He presents the expectations of the readers and confronts them with the ideas of the critic's.

The German researcher points out that a new form of theatre critic is needed but the traditional critic cannot disappear because its informative and explanatory role is still very important. Vasco Boenish admits that the critics often have no idea about their readers' expectations. He confronts the vague ideas of the critics with the readers' needs and points out the contradictions. He concludes that the theater critic/review has to get a fresh form and maybe this framework already exists: the new wave of theatre critic can be created by the interactive on-line theatre communities.

Full text (in Hungarian)

In Europe of the 90's a new theatrical form rises up: the documentary theatre. By breaking the traditional way of analyzing history, this theatrical form aims to present our social present from a new point of view: that of the average man about the average man with words of the average man. It appears in 2009 in Transylvania as an initiative of Gianina Cărbunariu and her documentary performance called „20/20". The result of the show is the development of a dialectical relation between the spectator and performer arguing about the past from the perspective of the present. In the fictive frame of the theatre, we meet a real order of the society in which Romanian and Hungarian lives together. In "20/20" it doesn't matter what happened before 1990, it is important what society thinks about the past and what can they do with their freedom in the present.

Full text (in Hungarian)

The Csettegő project of Endre Koronczi was created at the time of the EU accession, in 2003 in a small village of north Hungary, Nagybörzsöny. The main element of the project was a "beauty contest" for the locally common technical "innovations", the home made vehicles, called csettegő – a name imitating their sound. The whole project was documented by the ethnographer Péter Lágler in his film Gépművészet (Machine-art), where he expresses the ethnographic dimensions of this contemporary tradition. The present study analyses the project and the film through theories on contemporary art (on public art, community arts and participation), and visual communication, the author positioning herself in three different dimensions: that of the machine-makers, the artist and the ethnographer. The study also searches the connections between the role and the "eye" of the artist and the ethnographer.

Full text (in Hungarian)

The study introduces the notion of Participatory Art and is looking for examples in the contemporary visual artscene in Hungary. Participatory art projects are not common in the Hungarian visual art scene. The art scene is not receptive to self-restricting artistic activity and autonomy. The study presents some projects that deal with communities and can therefore be identified as community or participatory art projects. These projects were created for various contests: the first was put on by the Ludwig Museum in Budapest, the second by the Ministry of Economy and Transport in 2003, and the last by the Hungarian Art Council's public art contests in 2008 and 2009.

Full text (in Hungarian)

The paper is an attempt to describe the fields of power which not only created the museum as an institution in the eighteenth and the nineteenth century, but also determined its teleology. The author considers that the transcendental idea of an ethnically homogeneous nation-state was an essential "human construct" for the museum. However, the changes in historical theory during the second half of the twentieth century seem to have left intact the "original" structure of the museum. Terms reconsidered long time ago, like intersubjectivity, objectivity, values , canons, still seem to work without any concern in the space of the contemporary museum. Using theater tools, the paper examines the possibility of a museum where the unpredictability, the relative nature of value, the moment of dissolution of the meaning are used as main planning principles in exhibition.

Full text (in Hungarian)