gyula muskovics

Open Doors - Tamás Király 80s

Research project and exhibition

2014

Tamás Király (1952-2013) came to light with his cutting-edge fashion performances at the beginning of the 1980s in the underground art scene of Budapest. Already during the Socialist times, he participated in fashion shows in West Berlin, Amsterdam, and New York, alongside the most noted designers of the era; Vivienne Westwood, Yoshiki Hishinuma, Rudi Gernreich and Claudia Skoda among others. In 1988 he presented a geometric collection at the avant-garde show “Dressater” in Berlin. The collection was reminiscent of the costumes in Oskar Schlemmer’s “Triadic Ballet”. Later the collection was featured in magazines like Vogue, Stern and i-D, presenting the possibility of international recognition to the Hungarian artist. The research project, initiated and carried out by Gyula Muskovics and Andrea Soós, focuses on the first decade of Király’s work, and aims at opening up new interpretations about his oeuvre that had not been researched so far. The objects and documents exhibited at “Open Doors” recall the last few years of the Socialist era when artists in opposition to the state system still congregated in underground clubs; at the same time, nobody blinked an eye at someone wearing a hat modeled after the dome of the Hungarian Parliament with the emblematic red star.

Exhibiting artists: Jonathan Csaba Almási, El Kazovsky, Rodolf Hervé, Judit Kele, Tamás Király, Gizella Koppány, György Kozma, Péter Sziámi Müller, Marianna E. Padi, Lenke Szilágyi, Tamás Urbán, Attila Vécsy

Contributors: Artpool Art Research Centre, Magdi Bódy, Antal Csipes, Judit Gyüre, Rodolf Hervé Foundation, MaNDA – Hungarian Film Institute and Digital Archive, Marian Kiss, MTVA, El Kazovszkij Foundation, Nóra Kováts, Katalin Nádor, National Széchenyi Library, Open Society Archives, György Paraszkay, Andrea Parák, Andrea Büfé Puskás, RBB Media, Claudia Skoda, Gyöngyi Spitzer, Gergely Szatmári, Eleni Taxidou, Judit Vida, András Wahorn

Exhibition design: Virág Bogyó, Csilla Hódi and Dominika Trapp

Curated by Gyula Muskovics and Andrea Soós

Venue: tranzit.hu, Budapest, Hungary

Supported and commissioned by tranzit.hu Budapest

The exhibition was accompanied by the book “Tamás Király 80s”, published in 2017 by tranzit.hu Budapest, in Hungarian and English, edited by Gyula Muskovics and Andrea Soós.

In 2017 Gyula Muskovics continued the research on Király’s legacy and Eastern-European avant-garde fashion within the framework of the Art Theory PhD program at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in Budapest.

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