Biography

György Galántai was born in Bikacs, Hungary in 1941. From 1963 to 1967 he studied painting at the College of Fine Arts in Budapest. From 1970 on he organised semi-legal exhibitions, actions and happenings in the chapel of Balatonboglár, which he had rented from the Catholic Church until it was closed down by the police. Galántai experimented with graphic art, visual poetics and sound poetry. In 1978 he send out the call “Please send me information about your activity” to the international Mail Art Network. With the received mail he founded the Artpool archive that – besides its focus on the new and alternative mediums in contemporary arts from the 1960s on – became the most important centre for documentation and research on Mail Art in Middeleastern Europe. After 1989 the archive was opened to the public, and since 1992 it has been receiving financial support from the city of Budapest. Galántai did various Mail Art projects, i.e. an hommage to Ray Johnson, performances (1980 together with Italian Mail Artist Cavellini). In 1983 he published the first issue of the Artpool Letters, and in 1988/89 he received a fellowship of the DAAD in West Berlin.
For some exhibitions he rebuilded works by George Maciunas, like his deformed ping-pong table with Fluxus table tennis rackets.

György Galántai’s view of art shows close ties with the spirit of Fluxus, which rejected the creation of traditional art works and defined the task of art as inventing conceptual objects, creative situations, as well as, permanent creative and spiritual spaces. He has taken part and organized several one-man shows and group exhibitions, or events. He has made graphic works, paintings, moving and sound sculptures, performances, multimedia installations, communication projects, and is the founder of several alternative art institutions (e.g. the famous Chapel Studio in Balatonboglár between 1970 and 1973, or Artpool since 1979). Art director of the Artpool Art Research Center and curator of Artpool´s web-site www.artpool.hu

Literature (selection)

Galántai, György: “György Galántai antwortet auf Fragen: Fluxus + Konzeptuell = Kontextuell”, in: Katalog Fluxus East, Künstlerhaus Bethanien Berlin 2007, S. 141 – 156.

Links

www.artpool.hu (Artpool Archive) (en)
Mail Artists Index: http://mailartists.wordpress.com/2007/11/03/gyorgy-galantai/