Élet és Irodalom [Life and Literature], Budapest, 15 August 1970
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Throughout history artists generally had to struggle through life, since not only did they have to convince their audience but primarily had to defeat themselves; at the same time, I believe that never before in the long history of art did we see so much ignorance, so many geniuses ousted from society and forced into all sorts of exiles than now. Never before did we encounter so many tragically lonely artists, so many ridiculed masterpieces than in the decades when numerous academic speeches using the most decorous language were devoted to the notion of ‘art as a temple’ and elevated mediocre art to ordinary altars, while real artists were in the best case scenario accorded indifference and in the worst case scenario was scorned; in the meantime, conformism, fed by petit bourgeois decline, has grown obese, and real artists – each in their real or metaphoric Tahiti – were conducting the experiments which the new art eventually emerged out of.
Even today modern art is surrounded by numerous debates and endless misconceptions. “The new schools of art always race further in theories than in practical implementation”, wrote Lajos Kassák.
The important thing is not the labels pasted under artworks but whether a given work is beautiful or not: of course not in the meaning of the word as used by philistines and even less so by the petty bourgeoisie, but instead in its richer and more profound meaning, synonymous with truth, authenticity and sincerity; beautiful as in “helping people to live”, to quote the words of Eluard, the great French poet; i.e. to make our lives more, broader, fuller and all in all more humane, thus expanding the meaning of the word with the dimension of ‘artistically beautiful’, be it figurative, non-figurative, ‘decorative’ (Gauguin was held in contempt exactly for this) or expressive through moulding the deepest layers of the mind into an artwork.
And this hall-cum-temple, I believe, aspires to be the home, the fireplace and one day, hopefully, the ever-further-reaching focus of this art, which serves and creates – in that sense rightfully called sacred –, while being open to the world but feeding through Hungarian hairline roots.