COURAGE

connecting collections

Jana M. Bauerová was born in Dačice in 1980 and spent her childhood in Stará Říše in the neighborhood of the Jirous family. She graduated from business school in Jihlava. She works as an archivist at the Libri Prohibiti library, where she is responsible for the estate of Ivan Martin Jirous. In 2004, together with Františka Jirousová, she established the literary group Catholic Decadence. In 2008 she published the poems Northerly Cross, and in 2018 she and Františka Jirousová published their dairy memories of Jirous entitled Mága.

Imre Baász (1941-1991) was a Transylvanian Hungarian graphic artist. Baász was born in Arad on February 22, 1941 to a family of Jewish descent. In 1972, he graduated from the Department of Graphics at the Ion Andreescu Fine Arts University of Cluj as a student of graphic artist László Feszt. At the request of the Kriterion Publisher, he made illustrations for the Kalevala as his thesis work, for which he was awarded the second prize of the Graphic Art Salon of Bucharest. He moved to Sfântu Gheorghe (Sepsiszentgyörgy) in 1977 and began to be active as a kind of one-man institution. He organized workshops in his atelier to introduce local artists and art lovers to modern ideas. As an artist, he mainly thought about the survival of the Hungarian minority living in Transylvania. His art is draws on Expressionist traditions, and it is related to Conceptualism and the action art. In 1981, Baász organized the exhibition “Medium I.” for international contemporary works. In 1986, he initiated the exhibition “Bird Action,” and in 1987-1988 he organized the exhibition “Drawing-Space-Form.” In 1990, he launched the AnnArt performance-days, which he organized until his death. In 1990, he began serving as the scenographer of the Hungarian theater in Cluj (Kolozsvár). In 1990-1991, he taught as a member of the faculty at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bucharest. In 1991, he organized the “Medium II” exhibition.

László Beke is an art historian and curator. He studied at the Art History and Hungarian Language departments of Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. Beginning in 1968, he was a research fellow in art history at the Research Institute for Art History of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. From 1988 to 1995, he was chief curator of the painting collections of the Hungarian National Gallery and from 1995 to 2000 was the general director of the Műcsarnok/Kunsthalle in Budapest. Between 2000 and 2011, Beke served as the director of the Research Institute of Art History of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest. Since 1990, he has been a professor at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts and teaches at several other Hungarian institutions as well. Beginning in the late 1960s, he began participating in the activities of the underground contemporary art movements in Hungary. Beke is the author of approximately 400 studies, articles and catalogue essays and has been the editor of 15 books.

The first two decades of Beke’s career ran along parallel paths: at his official workplace he researched Medieval goldsmithery (his doctorate was about cloisonné enamel pieces), while in his free time he participated intensively in progressive art events that took place primarily at marginal locations. He soon became one of the major organizers of these events. Beke initiated projects, participated and organized events at the Chapel Studio in Balatonboglár, organized exhibitions at the Club of Young Artists in Budapest and happenings at the Ganz Cultural Center that were formally conducted as educational lectures. In the meantime, he built an extensive private archive, wrote essays, organized many exhibitions and served as a consultant for many exhibitions abroad. In 1977, Beke received the Kassák Prize awarded by the Magyar Műhely in Paris for the documentation of Hungarian art.