common places

The Ludwig Muzeum bears all the markers of a weighty investment: grand staircase, massive lobby with security system and guards, the cool geometric logic of a corporate structure. It seems, indeed, like a massive effort to develop, promote and legitimize contemporary art in Hungary. With all its wonder and gravity, culture looks down upon us. I am surprised and not unimpressed by the importance of “contemporary art” in the vision of the Hungarian state and wonder, as always, what is at stake in the development of such massive public (national) institutions. Suffice it so say we are prepared, even as we approach the building, even before we enter the lobby, to encounter Great art — and we rehearse, with every step, the well-behaved patterns of the Good Spectator. The promenade is quite long as we circle the building, so we have plenty of time … even as we move around the plaza, as we complete this ritual walk, we are becoming immobilized.

It is, of course, an impossible place. Living artists cannot afford an institutional vacuum, we know this. But it seems impossible to speak back, to critique, to find a space that is not always already overdetermined in such blockbuster institutions as we have come to see all over the world in the last… (how long has it been now? when was the last major wave of consolidation, the most recent mobilization and rise of the new art market? let’s just say, for the sake of simplicity, the eighties). But today we are going to try precisely to find a liminal space, a space for critical engagement. As part of the monthly “Report” lecture series organized by Ludwig curator Katalin Timar, the group Hints is invited to do a presentation. We gather in the Blue Room, a sort of conference center space with A/V system, PA, chairs and paneled walls where Hints will try to engage, and critique, in the same gesture. It is no wonder: the members of Hints were brought together by a common interest in public space and a commitment to the notion of surprise. They call their surprises “little bombs”, small discoveries in spaces never penetrated by the institutionalizing presence of “culture”, in the spaces of everyday life, in the small and large spaces of the city. The raw material of the work is also of the everyday: everyday conversations, everyday discarded objects, everyday environments and social interactions, the found, the leftover, the forgotten spaces and practices of (Hungarian) urban life. Hints is a collective of artists and sociologists, remarkably different in their individual creative practice, that have found a remarkable coherent collective identity (more on this, and their process, later). It would be interesting, we knew, how they would engage the Museum, given their practice of working in contexts that do not frame their work as “art”.

Let us return to Ludwig and the Blue Room. The context Hints are creating has been developing over the last week on their website: there is a “perfect sandwich” portal, inviting visitors to vote on their favorite ingredients for an ideal sandwich. The Ludwig event is announced as a pick-nick, featuring the winning combination, which Hints have indeed brought and are busily setting up. They have also worked closely with Ludwig staff to obtain leftover packaging materials from a previous exhibition – primarily the bubble wrap used to protect paintings, and indeed the packaging used to move the Ludwig collection from its previous headquarters in Buda, across town to the new Palace of Culture in Pest. As visitors arrive, the floor is almost completely covered in bubble wrap, there are no chairs nor a microphone nor a pulpit. The sandwich table is quickly discovered as the Hints members, some barefoot, either greet visitors, serve food or lounge comfortably on the bubble wrap.

The lecture, of course, becomes something else entirely. Hints has also invited Danish artist Jan Danebod
to present his work (“because we like it, he is critical of the city in a nice way”), as well as common_places to “do something” in the space and offer up a portion of the materials for the browsing. Finally, a project developed by Dynamite family in Grand Rapids (US) is discussed and posted on the wall. The conversation moves between English and Hungarian, people walk to and from the table, popping continuously along the way. There is a kind of decenterdness to what is happening, a refusal to get at the heart of the matter because, as Trinh T Minh-Ha once wisely said, “the heart of the matter is never where it is supposed to be”. The event draws to a close with an informal “interview”. common_places asks questions of Hints, about their projects and collaborative strategies, in an attempt to resolve two important problems: firstly, allowing Hints a more informal, conversational way of introducing themselves to this public; secondly, avoiding the problematic tendency to represent itself as a project, but rather enact, or be in process, on this occasion, the recorded conversation becoming part of the archive.

A few more words about Hints – though we hope the reader now understands, as do we, a few essential things about their approach. The group is constituted as a legal identity, a cultural association with specific members: Monika Bálint, Aniko Szövényi, Bruno Bitter, Tamas Ilauszky, Eszter Szabo, Rebeka Pál, Eva Bora. This formalized structure is the only way for any kind of art funding to be granted in Hungary. We have been told by all other formal groups we spoke with that this type of more “institutionalized” formal organization for a collective is the only practical way to proceed, and indeed some of the members listed above are active in name only, serving to bring the membership to a required number. The problem of possible new membership seems to be a tricky one, as the identity of the group may be destabilized by new voices. Though these types of boundaries remain (for now at least) rather fixed, others are much more porous: there seems to be a fluid, through never formally articulated, understanding of the relationships between individual and collaborative work. The members continue also their individual practice, and here is where our interest was peaked by their working method. Individual members of the group can initiate projects – they bring ideas to the others who may either:
1. support the idea as an individual project. This means not just emotional support, but indeed also contributions, labor, or even funds requested on behalf of that project though grants written by Hints – a sort of informal patronage system, a good way to sponsor individual projects through the mechanisms available to the collective
2. take on the idea as a Hints work. In this case, all structures of authorship identify the work as a Hints project (the funding, publicity, documentation and so forth) and group members work together on the project. However, it may not be all group members who take on the project. It is possible to have only two or three members working on something at a time, but taking on the identity of Hints if the rest of the group see the work as representative of the general focus and direction of the collective
3. take on the idea as authored by Hints, as representing Hints, though it may remain essentially developed by only one person (because of time, expertise, what have you)– this person relinquishes individual authorship and grants it to the collective, though the projects is developed, essentially, by themselves.
Collaborations seem to use this common ground, but actually develop through the principle of complementarity. For instance Eszter works primarily with handicrafts and sowing, while Monika is a sociologist interested in communication and urban space. They have developed a number of projects using Eszter’s symbolic use of traditional processes (investing sowing and cooking with new potentialities) and Monika’s sociological expertise and interest in the interference between private experience and public, or shared, understandings. See for instance their public sowing performances as well as the cyber-cooking projects. Aniko’s primary interest is in text, while Tamas uses traditional sculptural materials and processes, but investing his objects with performance possibilities. At the intersection of these various interests are the printed tablecloth, the public archive and the marble shopping bag. For more information on Hints projects, see the website at www.hints.hu

Filed under: Places: Budapest
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