The exhibition invites visitors to discover László Nagy’s versatile and experimental art from his childhood drawings through his profane icons to his visual poetry of the 1970s and the borderline of neo-avantgarde. You can delve into the workshop of the poet, literary translator and visual artist, where poem outlines, sketches of dreams, carved objects and visual poems – simultaneously, as they were being created – shape one another. Similarly to experimenting European artists in the 60s and 70s, visual expression for László Nagy was a form of thinking equal to poetry, supplementing and interpreting it. The complexity of his works was shaped by ritualistic-archaic roots, visual composition and media presence, as well as the tensions between internal emigration and public appearances.
On display are numerous previously unseen manuscripts, works of graphic art and personal items providing an insight into the living conditions and dilemmas of Hungarian intellectuals from the second half of the 40s to the 70s. László Nagy’s letters, diary extracts, translations and speeches at exhibition openings testify to his strategies of self-representation and his struggles for autonomy in the “supported” category of cultural policy during the Kádár era.
Curator: Mária Bartal