Book presentation in Írók Boltja at 25 May 2010, 4 p.m.

Book presented by: Júlia Klaniczay and László L. Simon. Speakers: Katalin Keserü, György Galántai, Tibor Papp, Bálint Szombathy and Gábor Tóth

Charles Tamkó Sirató was born 105 years ago and died 30 years ago. In 1965, i.e. 45 years ago, he compiled his memories of the history, background and follow-up of The Dimensionist Manifesto, published in Paris in 1936.

Although in 1936 the most prominent artists supported his Dimensionist art theory, it remained virtually unknown in Hungary and it gradually fell into obscurity in France. The main reason for this is that shortly after the manifesto was published Tamkó Sirató had to return to Hungary from Paris and that after World War II broke out he could not leave Hungary, where his innovative ideas were not received positively. Indeed, the implementation of his large-scale plan outlined in The Dimensionist Manifesto was unimaginable from behind the Iron Curtain. He hoped until his death that Album I of Dimensionism (Non-Euclidean Arts), the manuscript of which he distributed among his admirers, would be published.

Artpool and Magyar Műhely wish to pay tribute to the “prophet of Dimensionism” with this book which was recently published after several years of research and includes all the artist’s hitherto unpublished writing, his known and unknown pattern poems, the reconstructed version of his Dimensionist album, believed to have been lost, and – as a supplement – the reprint of the now unavailable edition of Manifeste Dimensioniste, published in Paris in 1936.

Through the personal accounts of the author readers can gain a direct insight into the background and reception of Planism in Hungary in the late 1920’s; the formation of the theory of Planism and the idea of Dimensionism, and into the writing of The Dimensionist Manifesto in Paris in the early 1930’s. The book also tells the story of how the news of the manifesto spread and how it found a following in Duchamp, Picabia, Moholy-Nagy and others. Finally, the volume throws light on the making of Album I of Dimensionism in the early 1960’s, explaining and illustrating Tamkó Sirató’s N+1 theory proclaimed in his Dimensionist manifesto.