ENDRE TÓT & GERGELY EÖRTZEN NAGY & DÁVID KARAS
From 1959 until 1965, Endre Tót studied mural art at the University of Applied Arts in Budapest. His early work was defined by lyrical, calligraphic paintings that were closely related to informel, while at the end of the 1960s pop art also had a serious influence on his practice: he participated in the legendary ‘Iparterv’ exhibitions (1968–69) with minimalist, geometrical surfaces combined on collage-like pictures. In 1971, he gave up painting and, under the influence of conceptual art, new media appeared in his work (telegrams, postcards, postal stamps, rubber stamps, film, posters, graffiti, banners, actions, artist books, etc.). From this point onwards, he devoted his work to the investigation of three key concepts, Nothing/Zero, Rain and Gladness. In 1978 Tót left Hungary for a DAAD scholarship in Berlin and a year later he settled down in Cologne. In the late 1980s, he returned to painting, working with the conceptual ideas developed by him in the 1970s. Tót’s works have been showcased at numerous international exhibitions in the past decades held at such venues as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Tate Gallery in London among others. He had retrospective exhibitions at the renowned Museum Ludwig in Cologne (1999), the Museum Friedericianum in Kassel (2006), and the MODEM in Debrecen, Hungary (2012).
ZERODEMO – TALPRA MAGYAR AVANTGARDE
2013
8:32
video / documentation of a happening
A decade ago, on May 2, 2013, a zero-demonstration took place on Andrássy Street in Budapest, where approximately 150 participants marched from Heroes’ Square to the entrance of the Vigadó, holding signs and banners with Endre Tót’s Zero works. The documentary’s title is “TALPRA MAGYAR AVANTGARD!,” inspired by Tót’s famous 1972 artwork, a tricolor with text on a white field. The typeface used in the artwork is the same as the National Song and twelve dots printed on the Hagar press of the Landerer and Heckenast printing house seized by Sándor Petőfi in 1848, carrying a message of historical importance that still resonates today.
