Visit to Artpool, Monday 18th May

Artpool is one of the oldest and most inspiring projects which we have visited during the Pest project. Described as an ‘active archive’, it is the product of a continuing struggle by its founders György Galántai and Júlia Klaniczay to work freely as artists and maintain connections with their international cotemporaries, in what continues to be a restrictive cultural environment.

The archive is hidden away on the first floor of a residential apartment block, overlooking a leafy square of bars and pavement cafes (a hot contender for the next Pest office location!).  Once inside, it continues to feel like a secret operation. Almost every room and corridor is lined from floor to (very high) ceiling with books, journals, DVDs and all manner of artists’ information filed in meticulously labelled brown folders, whilst an unexpected door in the middle of a bookcase leads to an adjoining apartment that Artpool have recently taken over to accommodate the rapidly growing archive.  In the main space an archivist, media theorist and web designer were busily tapping away at computers; we didn’t need to be told that this was an active archive.

During a fascinating couple of hours, Júlia Klaniczay explained how the project had come into being.  The (very) concise history, as understood by Pest is as follows (much more detailed information can be found on their website here)….

The roots of the project extend to 1970, when Galántai rented a disused chapel in a small town outside of Budapest.  This was both his studio and an exhibition venue for his own artwork and that of other artists.  The project was illegal under the country's Communist regime, however Galántai managed to survive sporadic closure of the studio and sustain the project until the police closed it down for the final time in 1973.

In spite of his lack of venue and the sustained police surveillance of his activities, Galántai continued to make artwork and to forge links with other artists across the world.  It was during this time that he met Júlia Klaniczay, who possessed the skills he lacked in foreign languages, and together they developed and re-developed tactics to allow them to continue their artistic practice and create an international artist network.  

The archive essentially came into being as a result of their first tactical use of the international postal network.  Following a spontaneous performance by the Canadian artist Anna Banana at the opening of an exhibition of Galántai’s sculpture, the artists produced small booklets that documented the event.  These were disseminated to international artists, with the printed request ‘please send information’.  In response, the couple received postbags of material about artworks and projects from artists throughout the world, accompanied by expressions of support and invitations to participate in exhibitions and events.  

Whilst the police were used to physical venues as sites for the production and dissemination of art, the notion of a network as a generative art project was a new concept.  In this way, the artists were able to operate under the radar for many months.  Sadly, despite painstaking attempts by the artists to hide their activities from the authorities, much of their mail was eventually confiscated and during the 1980s the government was successful in breaking their main channels of communication with the outside world.  Nevertheless, this was not enough to deter them from delivering ambitious artworks and projects, (many of which are documented on their website) and Artpool celebrates its 30^th birthday this year. 

Chatting in the Hungarian heat afterwards, it appeared to us that the strength and resilience of the project continues to lie in two important areas: the artists’ understanding of the social significance of networks and the potential of these as tools of resistance; and their combination of optimism and pragmatism. In this way, György Galántai and Júlia Klaniczay not only managed to operate for 10 years within a dictatorial regime, but remain resolute in their ideology and actions despite their continued marginalisation within the mainstream Hungarian art scene (where powerful positions continue to be held by the individuals appointed during Communism).  Artpool is both an important historical resource and a forward-looking, ever-changing artwork.  It will be fascinating to see how it evolves.