ST. AUBY, Tamás [Szentjóby, Stjauby, Emmy (Emily) Grant, St. Aubsky, T. Taub etc.]
poet, happener, no-art-artist
(17 Aug. 1944, Fót)
1978–1980: College of Visual Arts, Geneva, master: Cherif Defraoui; Free University of Seizmology, Geneva. From 1961 he deals primarily with tradition-orientated art and with actual political competition poem writing with the group named Buta Költők Köre (Circle of Dumb Poets). From 1963 he dealt with the copying and distribution of the writings of Béla Hamvas. In 1966, as an aesthetic and ethical decision, he wrote his “last” poem, dedicated to János Pilinszky, and, even though in 1965 he prepared his first inter-media conceptual objects, he discontinued his active pursuit of art. In 1966, reassessing the relationship between “here and now” he wrote the first Hungarian poems inspired by pop-art, as well as a number of ‘picture’ and ‘concrete’ poems. In the summer of 1966, together with Gábor Altorjay, he conducted the first Hungarian happening. Up until this time the State Security Authority of Hungary had him categorized as a right-wing Mystic, from this time on however, under the code name of the “Schwitters”, he was watched and when possible hindered, as a radical left-wing anarchist, which lead to the rapid radicalization of his activities. From 1966 onwards he translated, copied, and distributed texts related to the Flux. He also joined the Mail-art movement. In 1967 he participated in the Panoramikus Tengeri Happening of Tadeusz Kanto in Kolobrzek, Poland. Following his unsuccessful deflection to Sweden, he was compulsory conveyed back to Hungary, after which he no longer received a passport, even to Eastern European Countries. St. Auby participated in exhibitions (drawing, drawing-poem, painting, photo, object, environment, etc.), organized happenings, actions, action theatre, and film productions performances, flux-concerts, reading nights, lectures, and so on. He also prepared radio plays, and films and published abroad, all of which he executed ‘semi-legally’, or illegally, bringing upon himself the punitive sanctions of the authorities. In 1968 he founded the Telekommunikáció Nemzetközi Paralel Unió /The Union of the International Telecommunications Parallel/, under the cover-name of Paralel Kurzus/Tanpálya (Parallel Course) the goal of which was the operation of a collective operation parallel to the status-quo. The central idea of the Union was: Art is Kitsch – History is Kitsch; Art is everything, which is prohibited. Be Prohibited! In 1969 he joined the IPARTERV group, for he interpreted the name as the abbreviation of: Intermedia-, Pop Art-, Ereignis-, Változás (Change). In 1970 he received the Béla Pásztor Award, founded from the Kossuth Award by Sándor Weöres, and in 1971 the Magyar Műhely (Hungarian Workshop) awarded him with the Kassák Award. He began dealing with the theme of Strike in 1972, this lead him to the Létminimum Standard Projekt (Minimal Subsistence Standard Project) 1984 W, Csinálj egy széket! (Make a chair) (Abbreviation: LSP 1984 W) program, which was based on the mutational base of the Duchamp-type diversion (No-art as art), with the exceeding of George Brecht (No-art as art as No-art art). The LSP 1984 W was the pan-logical solution to the mythical fall (from Eden): the “teo-technological” development of the Free Will. In 1974, due to his participation in the Szamizdat Movement (anti-governmental illegally distributed periodical) he was arrested, and ordered to leave the country together with György Konrád and István Szelényi. In both 1974 and 1975 he won the Spring Exhibition Award of the Club of Young Artists. In 1975 St. Auby left Hungary, and following a six-month tour of Europe, settled down in Geneva, due primarily due to his dual Hungarian-Swiss citizenship. He became friends with André L’Huillier, the art- collector –patron, who supported the development of the LSP 1984 W, and purchased a significant number of St. Auby’s works. During this time he structured the character of the collection in a non-Darwinist psycho-chromatic manner. In Geneva he opened the new center of the TNPU (sections: Parallel Mass Control, International Gray Cross), which dealt with the preparation of the Five Year Plan 1979-1984 W up until 1979. In 1977 he broke off ties with profit-orientated galleries. He founded the institution named the Közel-Kelet-Európai Szabadegyetem Nyugat-Európai Munkanélkülieknek (Near-Eastern-European Free University for Unemployed Western Europeans) with an Aszt.ronómia-, Rock&Roll- és Szt.rájk-tanszék (As.tronomy-, Rock & Roll-, and St.rike- faculty) (KESZANEMROSZ). Due to the fact that he “wished to be a Christian”, as he declared, that he left the Roman Catholic Church. In 1980 he organized a No-art art strike. In 1980, within the framework of the Five Year Plan, at the first ‘crionised’ suggestion of James H. Bedford, as 1st Phase of the LSP 1984 W, following the hierarchical fusion of the TNPU and the Union of International Telecommunication, A Mutáns (The Mutant) is materialized in the laboratory of the TNU. The Mutant being an artificial individual initiated, reprogrammed by the voluntary name combination of the myths of creation and evolution, who in order to legalize the action, according to mythological, scientific and artistic terms, was exhibited in the Natural Science and Ethnographic Museum of Geneva. As the 2nd Phase of the action, again based on name giving, the Mutáns Osztály /Mutant Faculty/, an artificial faculty, was founded in the Appartement Gallery of Geneva. Finally as the 3rd Phase, the founding of the state of those rejecting the over consumption of militarism as a forbidden fruit, took place at the St. Borromée Chapel of Fribourg in Czechoslovakia, through its naming, during the course of the one and a half hour opening speech. From 1984 the 4th Phase began with the extension of the research to Anatomic Immortality, the ‘Katabázisz Sztoeriologiké’ - művelet (operation). In 1987 he opened the No-profi/No-profil/No-profit (No professionalism, No profile, No profit) based Ruine (Ruin) Gallery, which he operated in a ‘heterarchic’ manner (the exhibiting artists was his or her own gallery manager). In the Szombat Év (Saturday Year) between 1989 and 1990 he, as an honorary member of the A Nemzetközi Lapos Föld Társaság /International Flat Earth Society/, spent an entire year traveling around the world. The TNPU moved back to Hungary in 1991, where it opened a Közel-Kelet-Európai Homogén Fiók /Near-Eastern European Homogenic Office/, from where it controlled its phase of Mítosz-korrekció /Myth-Correction/ following the year of 1984. Among its activities was the transformation of the central symbol of Hungary. the Felszabadulási emlékmű /Liberation Monument/ on Gellért Hill. From 1991, for a year and a half, he organized the Unikon-type (a single work of art) exhibitions held in the Bartók 32 Gallery. He summarized the 12 year probing of the Boehme Turba, beginning from 1984, that is the allegorical/genesis, so to speak unavoidable process and outcome of the permeation of the “bad” savior, speaking in aesthetical terms, defined by the government, the church, and the market, furthermore the extrapolational re-grouping of the basic elements of the epic, under the title of the Létminimum Szinten Sztrájkban Élők nem-művészet-művészetének pszichomutáció-eposza /Psycho-mutational Epic of no-art-art of those living in Strike under the Minimal Subsistence Standard/, under the name of T. Taub (T. Deaf), in a succession of 3334 pictures (Baddrawing) and the sentences related to them (Badtitle). In 1996 he received the MAOE Award, in 2000 the Novacom Award brought about by the multimedia organ of the TNPU, under the name of Henry Flynt 2. in 1982, for the version developed in 2000. In the name of Myth Correction he opened the Neo-Szocialista Realista TNPU Globális Anti-Művészettörténet-hamisítók Front /Neo-Socialist Realist TNPU Global Anti-Art history Falsifiers Front/ (NETRAF). He has been holding lectures at the Inter-media Faculty of the College of Fine Arts in Budapest since 1991 (under the title of: Paralel Kurzus/Tanpálya II. – Anatómiai Halhatatlanság [Parallel Course II. –Anatomic Immortality]).
One-Man Shows:
1975 • Make a Chair! (Hommage à George Brecht - LSP 1984 W) (performance), FMK – Club of Young Artists, Budapest • Retrospect Exhibition, FMK – Club of Young Artists, Budapest
1977 • Emmy Grant • LSP (Paralel Course) ”Educational Predisplay”, Galerie Ecart, Geneva • LSP 1984 W (performance), V. Documenta, Free International University, Kassel
1979 • James H. Bedford Demonstration in Switzerland - "1967. 1. 12.-1984. 8. 17." Newton = Hitler, Centre d'art Contemporaine, Geneva
1980 • The Mutant (initiation action), TNU-laboratory/Musée d'histoire naturelle/Musée d'etnographie, Geneva
1981 • The Mutant Class – Hunger-strike, Galerie Appartement, Geneva • The Foundation of the 24th. Canton (foundation of the state), St. Borromée Chapel, Fribourg (CH)
1984 • Minimum Subsistence Standard Project 1984 W, Kunstmuseum, Luzern • M. Rath, Geneva
1990 • Grève de l'Art (1990-1993), Galerie Ruine, Geneva • Minimum Subsistence Standard Project 1984 W (IV. phase) - Katabázisz Szoteriologiké, Műcsarnok, Budapest
1996-1997 • Projekt de niveau de Substance minimum 1984 W - Phase IV - Catabase Sotériologique, M. Rath, Geneva
1998 • TNPU-Archive • IPUT-hypothesis, Goethe Institute • TNPU-Archive • The LSP 1984 W, The Multimedial Documents of the Phase I., II., III., Bartók 32 Gallery, Budapest
2001 • TNPU-Archive • János Major at The Fine Art Academy of Beograd – The Opening of NETRAF, Collegium Budapest.
Selected Group Exhibitions:
1966 • The Lunch /In memoriam Batu Khan/ (happening) [Altorjay, G., Jankovics, M., Varannai, I., Erdély, M.], Budapest, Hegyalja Street 20/b. • Elevation/1 (spontaneous action for spontaneous public), underpass at the Blaha Lujza square, Budapest
1967 • Akctions, Radio-play [Altorjay, G., Erdély, M., Altorjai, S.], Clubhouse of the Hungarian Writers’ Assotiation, Budapest
1968 • UFO (tryst) (happening) [Erdély, M., Ladik, K., Dárday, I., Szalay, Gy., Urbán, M., Dúl, A., R., Bentichou], Dunapart, Szentendre (HU) • Do You See What I See? - "Three Quark for King Marke" etc. (actions, films stb.) [Erdély, M.], IPARTERV, Budapest
1969 • Iparterv II, IPARTERV, Budapest
1970 • R-Exhibitions, Budapest University of Technology, Budapest
1972 • kazdy wszedzie jednoczesnie, [st.Jauby, jovanovics, lakner, (Erdély) miklós, pauer, tót], G. Foksal, Warsaw
1973 • 8e Biennale de Paris, Paris
1980 • Fluxconcert for George Maciunas [J. M. Armleder, M. Knizak, Ben E. Williams], Salle Patino, Geneva
1981 • Artistes de Genève - Mixed Media - Grève de l'art, M. Rath, Geneva
1991 • The General Art-Strike and the Perpetuum Mobile, Centre d'art Contemporain, Fribourg (CH) • The Sixties, Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest
1993 • Fluxconcert, Russian Cultural Centre, Budapest • 3 x 4, [Altorjay, G., Erdély, M.], Artpool, Budapest
1996 • The Butterfly Effect, Műcsarnok, Budapest
1998 • The First Generation of Hungarian Neo-Avant-Garde 1965-1972, Gallery of Szombathely, Szombathely (HU) • Orgy (happening) [Altorjay, G., Erdély, M.], Műcsarnok, Budapest
1999 • Global Conceptualism • Points of Origin 1950s-1980s, Queens Museum of Art, New York
1999 • Kunst der neunziger Jahre in Ungarn, Akademie der Künste, Berlin
2000 • Media Modell. Intermedia – New Picture Types - Interactive Technics, Műcsarnok, Budapest
2001 • Sculpture, Műcsarnok, Budapest.
Works in Public Collections:
FMDAC de Genève
Janus Pannonius Museum, Pécs (HU)
Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest, Musée d'art et d'histoire, Geneva
Musée d'art Moderne, Paris
Ignác Tragor Museum, Vác (HU).
Most Important Substantive Editions:
Itt aztán fű nem terem, Sznob International (szamizdat), 1984?
Autokatalízis, Gallery of Víziváros, Budapest, 1995
Projet de niveau de subsistance minimum 1984 W - Phase IV - "Katabasis Soteriologike", Musée d'art et d'histoire, Genève, 1996
TNPU LSP 1984 W, Bartók 32 Gallery, Budapest, 1998
Egy zsarolás és egy bojkott genealógiája a létező pápizmus idején Közel-Kelet-Európában, SK1, 1999
1966 1999-ben?, SK2, 2000
1968 Élet és Irodalom 2000, SK3, 2000.
Selected Publications:
Künstler aus Ungarn (kat., Kunsthalle, Wilhelmshaven, 1980)
Kizárás gyakorlat A - B
Beszélgetés az IPUT-ról és a 24. Kantonról, Artpool Letter 5., 1983
The Subsistence Level Standard Project 1984 W (kat., Kunstmuseum, Luzern
M. Rath, 1984)
Wandtafel 11 (M. Kramer: Joseph Beuys "Das Kapital Raum 1970-1977" Staeck Heidelberg, 1991)
A magyar neoavantgarde első generációja 1965-1972 (cat., Gallery of Szombathely, Szombathely, 1998).
Film:
Kentaur, BBS, 1973-75.
Selected Videos:
Leaving the Church, 1979
The Mutant, 1980
Art-Strike-tape (The Mutant Class), 1981
The Foundation of the 24. Kanton, 1981
A TNPU-diszpécser letartóztatása, 1983
A Szűz Mária megjelenése, 1986?, A Szabadság Lelkének Szobra, 1992.
Bibliography:
Beke, L.: Kentaur, Magyar Műhely, 1978/54-55.
Molnár, G.: Kentaur, Magyar Műhely, 1978/55-56
Marno, J.-Antal, I.: Itt fű nem terem, Holmi, 1990/2
Miltényi, T.: A Létminimum Sztenderd Projekt, Magyar Narancs, 1991. október 23.
György, P.: Az elsüllyedt sziget, Budapest, 1992
Beke, L.: Művészet/Elmélet, Budapest, 1994
Brock, B.: Katabasis Soteriologike, Balkon, 1996/10-11.
Ritschard, C.: "Catabase sotériologique", Musée d'art et d'histoire, Genève, 1996
Tábor, Á.: Ki ülhet a szombat trónjára?, Balkon, 1996/6.
Nyffenegger, F.: 3200 dessins d'UIPT, Kunst-Bulletin, Zürich/Genève, 1996/10.
Tábor, Á.: in: A váratlan kultúra, Budapest, 1997
Legéndy, P.: in: Művészet és ellenség, Budapest, 1997
Beke, L.: Médium/Elmélet, Budapest, 1997
Szoboszlai, J.: Selbstporträt einer Generation, in: Die zweite Öffentlichkeit (szerk.: Knoll, H.), Verlag der Kunst Dresden, 1999
Boros, G.: Emlék/Mű, Budapest, 2001.