Gizela Horvath

Synthesis Philosophica, 2011

The problem of identity in the world of art is relevant from many perspectives. This paper aims a... more The problem of identity in the world of art is relevant from many perspectives. This paper aims at discussing the identity of the work of art. The discussion is built in three steps: the problem of identification of an object as work of art, the problem of the relevant properties of a work of art and the question of the author of the work of art as decisive (or not) for the identification of a work of art. These issues are raised with the evolution of artistic practice and art theory in the last century. The appearing of the "ready-made" destabilized the firm identity of a work of art and now we have to decide what the difference is between a work of art and its perceptually identical pair. Traditionally relevant perceptual features lost their importance in conceptual art, so we have to decide what relevant properties belong, even today, to works of art. Finally, the practice of appropriation in postmodern art challenges the notion of the artist and of the meaning of genuine creation.

The Rhetoric of Absence in Contemporary Art

Bakó & all (Eds): Argumentor. Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Argumentation and Rhetoric, Partiumi Kiadó, Oradea and Debrecen University Press, Debrecen, 2012, 2012

The hero of art's grand narrative is the creative genius who makes original works of art, which a... more The hero of art's grand narrative is the creative genius who makes original works of art, which are then contemplated in awe by the museum-going public. This grand narrative seems to collapse in the 20th century, due to both theoretical approaches and artistic practice. In the 20th century, we encounter various forms of the absence of the artist, the artwork, or the museum. The artist's absence is manifest in theories of the "death of the author" and of antiintentionalism, as well as in the ready-made, in unfinished works, or in appropriation art. Works of art are also gradually emptied: abstract paintings lack representative content; works based on decay have no permanent object; finally, performances and happenings involve no physical object at all. John Dewey spoke up against the "museum view" of art, and it is within the same framework that Fluxus, land art, and those works who expected a playful, active reception on the part of the public. In these cases, the artists use the rhetorical power of elliptical expression, exemplifying Arthur Danto's conception of art as transfigurative metaphor. Absence is, in reality, abundance.

Visual Creativity of Protests in Romania (2016-2019)

VISUAL REVIEW. International Visual Culture Review

After the pictorial turn, it is not surprising that political messages are more and more often pr... more After the pictorial turn, it is not surprising that political messages are more and more often presented in a visual form. Today, the battle between great ideas is not only fought via texts, but also through real and virtual images, or, through imagetexts. This paper tackles the image politics of the Romanian post-2016 anti-government popular resistance through some typical cases of imagetext: hashtags, symbols, video mapping, posters and some cases of visible space-occupation. These examples can present the anonymous (in some cases professional) artistic creativity, which helps the formation of social solidarity and crystallizes the message of the resistance.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2010

Argumentative Discourse About Works of Art

The discourse connected to the realm of art and, most of all, argumentative speech connected to w... more The discourse connected to the realm of art and, most of all, argumentative speech connected to works of art differs from the discourse of the realm of science. The specificities of the language of aesthetics are due partly to the fact that we can talk about aesthetic properties, which are different from non-aesthetic properties. In 20th century art we come across works of art in the case of which aesthetic properties are irrelevant. According to the thesis of the paper, if we can differentiate between perceptually indifferent works (e.g. Duchamp's Fountain or Ondak's Loop) and perceptually relevant works (e.g. a Monet or a Van Gogh), then this difference will be mirrored in the discourse about these works.

Art, World, Artworld

Synthesis philosophica

Ancient Greek philosophers claimed that the particular task of art was mimesis. This kind of view... more Ancient Greek philosophers claimed that the particular task of art was mimesis. This kind of view about the relation between art and the world was dominant until the beginning of the 19th century. The theory of genius rethought this relation, and it did not presume that art needs to mirror the world. On the contrary, it expected originality, that is, the creation of a new world. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the artworld operates under a wider notion of the 'work of art', e.g. Duchamp's "readymade" and "institutional readymade", which are linked to outsider art. In both cases, the creation of an object and the creation of an art piece are separate actions performed by different individuals. This paper attempts to tackle these problems and prove that the contemporary art does not relate primarily to the world, but mainly to the artworld. Thus, the path from art to the world goes through the artworld.

A művészeti világ peremén. Az 55. Biennále esete

Religious Icons in Romanian Schools: Text and Context

Journal For the Study of Religions and Ideologies, Dec 1, 2009

Tükröm, tükröm... Az önarckép lehetőségei a kortárs képzőművészetben

Tükröm, tükröm... Az önarckép lehetőségei a kortárs képzőművészetben A költők állítása szerint, a... more Tükröm, tükröm... Az önarckép lehetőségei a kortárs képzőművészetben A költők állítása szerint, a virággá változott Narcissus volt a festészet feltalálója; és minthogy a festészet minden művészet virágává vált, az egész Narcissusról szóló történet éppen ideillik. Mit mondasz, mi egyéb a festészet, mint magunkhoz ölelni a forrás vizének tükrét? 1 Leon Battista Alberti, amikor 1436-ban a reneszánsz gondolkodók közül elsőként könyvet ír a festészetről, a visszatér egy ősrégi, Platóntól származó hasonlathoz: a festészet nem más, mint tükör. Platónnál a tükörhasonlat nyilvánvalóan a festészet mesterségének lealacsonyítását szolgálja: Szókratész igyekszik lehűteni Glaukon lelkesedését a művészetek iránt azzal, hogy felveti, ő maga, Glaukon is képes lenne mindazt létrehozni, amit a mesterek, egy tükör segítségével: "ha egy tükröt veszel, és azt mindenfelé körülhordozod: így egykettőre alkothatsz napot, mindent, ami az égen van, földet, sőt nagyon hamar madarat, a többi élőlényt, használati tárgyat, növényeket, s minden egyebet is megalkothatsz, amiről az imént szóltunk" 2

Why the Brillo Box? The Recovery of the Aesthetic

Why live with dull anesthetic objects? Why not objects as beautiful as Brillo Boxes? Arthur C. Da... more Why live with dull anesthetic objects? Why not objects as beautiful as Brillo Boxes? Arthur C. Danto "beauty is not the default condition for art" The crucial development of the concept of art in the mideighteenth century was establishing that art is organised around the beautiful. This point of view can also be seen in the naming of art in those times: beaux-arts, fine arts, belle arti, szép művészetek, arte frumoase. Until the beginning of the twentieth century it was widely accepted that the beautiful (the aesthetic) belongs to the essence of (fine) art, art philosophy was thought to be a sub-category of aesthetics, and the "artistic" was studied as one of the cases of the aesthetic. The artistic and philosophical developments of the twentieth century questioned these theses as self-explanatory. Decisive in this respect was Arthur C. Danto's position who became an art philosopher influenced by Andy Warhol's 1964 Brillo Box (Danto, 2009). Arthur Danto thinks that Andy Warhol reformulated the main question of art philosophy by exhibiting the Brillo Box, which seemingly is not different in any regard from the Brillo boxes found on the shelves of supermarkets. Thus, art philosophy primarily has to answer the question of how it is possible in the case of two perceptually indistinguishable items that one of

Religious Icons in Romanian Schools: Text and Context

Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies, 2010

FACES OF NOSTALGIA. RESTORATIVE AND REFLECTIVE NOSTALGIA IN THE FINE ARTS

Jednak Książki. Gdańskie Czasopismo Humanistyczne, (9), 145-156. , 2018

In the present article I use the terminology introduced by Svetlana Boym of restorative nostalgia... more In the present article I use the terminology introduced by Svetlana Boym of restorative nostalgia and reflective nostalgia regarding works of contemporary fine art. Restorative nostalgia implies an effort to revive the past – but without acknowledging that the desired and idealized past never existed, therefore it cannot be restored, either. I illustrate the application of this concept through the “new-academic” direction in today’s contemporary Hungarian fine arts. The reflective nostalgia is aware of the idealizing momentum of the desired past, it reflects critically upon its own desires, and it highlights possibilities in the past regarding the present – often playfully or with irony. I illustrate the latter through the works of the Chinese Ai Wei Wei and the Romanian Mircea Cantor. I argue that reflective nostalgia is not a fruitless burial into the past, but a resource for processing the passing of time in a creative manner.

MeToo -Hungarian STyle

Rozália Klára Bakó, Gizela Horváth (Eds.) 2018. Digital Agora. Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Argumentation and Rhetoric, held in Oradea / Nagyvárad, Romania, 21 September 2018. Partium Press, Oradea and Debrecen University Press, Debrecen, 36-66. , 2018

This study focuses on the Hungarian impact of the 2017 "Me Too" movement , offering an analysis o... more This study focuses on the Hungarian impact of the 2017 "Me Too" movement , offering an analysis of some relevant online texts and of their comments. The theoretical framework is provided by the anthropological linguistic approach (Balázs 2009), linguistic world view research (Kövecses 2017, Banczerowski 2008, 2012, Magyari 2015), and discourse analysis (Berger 1998, Nemesi 2016). The research method is based on participant observation and on text analysis, which also offers the possibility of content analysis, if the researcher applies a corpus-centred perspective (Balaskó 2005). The research questions point in two directions. The linguistic approach deals with the question of how the "Me Too" movement is discussed. How do the victim and the offender appear in online media, and how is their image represented by commenting readers? According to our hypothesis, information is not always controlled in online space, and opinion formation becomes almost even more important than the fact itself. Hence, the knowledge fixed within language and language use changes as well. Our research attaches great importance to the reconstruction of linguistic images, leading to the exploration of underlying values systems, also pointing out cultural phenomena such as the dichotomy between silence and speaking out, conceptualized as social phenomena in an anthropological and ethnographic framework. At the same time, from the perspective of argumentation and rhetoric, we are interested in the emerging positions and in the typical arguments supporting these, in their conflict, and in the most frequently occurring means of persuasion. We also presuppose that the positions and modes of reasoning are clearer and relatively restrained in the online press, while the discourse of the comments is more emotionally charged.

The Ambiguity of Micro-Utopias

Monteiro, Maria do Rosario & Ming Kong, Mario S. (eds.). Utopia(s) – Worlds and Frontiers of the Imaginary. Boca Raton London New York Leiden: CRC Press, Taylor and Francis Group, 2017, 417 p., 241-247. ISBN: 978-1-138-19748-0 (Hbk); ISBN: 978-1-315-26532-2, 2017

“Micro-utopia” is one of the central concepts of relational aesthetics. Nicolas Bourriaud p... more “Micro-utopia” is one of the central concepts of relational aesthetics. Nicolas Bourriaud promotes such relational art projects that construct “hands-on Utopias”, “micro-utopias”. The present paper considers the concept of “micro-utopia” ambiguous and analyses this ambiguity by reconstructing the conceptual framework of relational aesthetics, based on three notions: the concept of “society of the spectacle” (Debord), the concept of artistic critique (Boltanski and Chiapello), and the concept of “pragmatic utopia” (Vieira). I argue that the concept of micro-utopia as tool of interpretation does not function without any problem. It can be proved on some of the works of Rirkrit Tiravanija, the famous artist of relational art that the ambiguity of micro-utopia leads to conceptual problems within the framework of relational aesthetics. There is concern that Tiravanija’s cooking-performances are utopias only for few, because these events strengthen the exclusivist harmony among the natives of the art world. Then I turn to such artworks that thematise the labour process. In these cases works imagined as alternatives against the current capitalist system illustrate or reproduce the very functioning of capitalism. The difficulties of the concept of micro-utopia suggest that nowadays we cannot think coherently about the utopia, not even in the world of art that is the land of freedom.

Progress and Regress: the Current Status of Art in Two Post-Communist Countries

Mário Kong, Maria do Rosário Monteiro, Maria João Pereira Neto (eds.) Progress(es); Theories and Practices. Leiden: CRC Press, Taylor and Francis Group, 241-246. ISBN: 978-0-8153-7415-2., 2018

The idea of progress is strongly associated with the Enlightenment belief that humanity is capabl... more The idea of progress is strongly associated with the Enlightenment belief that humanity is capable of improving its condition through reason. “Progress” is the central concept of the 19th century, whose importance diminishes in the 20th century and is disappearing from contemporary social discourse. My paper examines the position of the idea of progress and the related system of ideas in the current political discourse of two post-communist countries, along with the way in which this is reflected in the results of the artistic activity. In Romania, progress represents a legitimate, but not central and dominant, the idea of politics, while the political leadership of Hungary views progress and its ideological context as harmful and favours a view centred upon the nation, which is oriented towards the past and builds exclusively upon tradition. In Romania, due to the fragmented political spectrum, there is no coherent political position relating to art or a developed and uniform support system; thus, artists have to organise themselves. The Hungarian government has recognised the potential propagandistic value of art and therefore centralised its organisation and financial support through the Hungarian Academy of Arts. Although one might think that a better organisation and financial support would strengthen art, we find that while the Romanian art scene is in full bloom, Hungarian art is having trouble finding its place in the international arena.

The Modern Paradigm of Art and Its Frontiers

Monteiro, Mario do Rosario, Ming Kong, Mario S., & Pereira Neto, Maria Joao (eds.): Modernity, Frontiers and Revolutions. Boca Raton London New York Leiden: CRC Press, Taylor and Francis Group. ISSN Print: 2161-3907. ISSN Online 2639-0205, 2019

The awakening of art to self-awareness and the statement of its autonomy are modern phenomena.Her... more The awakening of art to self-awareness and the statement of its autonomy are modern phenomena.Here I deduct three elements of the modern paradigm of art from the idea of “beauty without concept”: (1) the original artist, who is seen as a genius, (2) the work of art with an aura, and (3) the museum as the temple of art. Then I present how artists, based on the requirement of originality, worked on dismantling the frontiers of the modern paradigm.

A RELÁCIÓESZTÉTIKA IDEIGLENES KÖZÖSSÉGEI

The notion of " relational aesthetics " was created by Nicolas Bourriaud in 1995 to describe the ... more The notion of " relational aesthetics " was created by Nicolas Bourriaud in 1995 to describe the new artistic phenomena of the nineties. According to Bourriaud the manifestations of relational art create temporary communities , thus turning art into a social laboratory. This paper investigates the communities arising through these artistic endeavors. My hypothesis is that the empty communities motivated solely by the artistic event are not more consistent than the audience of a play or a performance, furthermore , they do not transcend the elite public of galleries and exhibitions. On the other hand, when the artistic endeavor expresses a social message in addition to the artistic purpose, the possibility of real – though, also temporary – communities arises.

“From Museum Walls to Facebook Walls”*. A new public space for art

Synthesis Philosophica, 2011

The Rhetoric of Absence in Contemporary Art

Bakó & all (Eds): Argumentor. Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Argumentation and Rhetoric, Partiumi Kiadó, Oradea and Debrecen University Press, Debrecen, 2012, 2012

Visual Creativity of Protests in Romania (2016-2019)

VISUAL REVIEW. International Visual Culture Review

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2010

Argumentative Discourse About Works of Art

Art, World, Artworld

Synthesis philosophica

A művészeti világ peremén. Az 55. Biennále esete

Religious Icons in Romanian Schools: Text and Context

Journal For the Study of Religions and Ideologies, Dec 1, 2009

Tükröm, tükröm... Az önarckép lehetőségei a kortárs képzőművészetben

Why the Brillo Box? The Recovery of the Aesthetic

Religious Icons in Romanian Schools: Text and Context

Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies, 2010

FACES OF NOSTALGIA. RESTORATIVE AND REFLECTIVE NOSTALGIA IN THE FINE ARTS

Jednak Książki. Gdańskie Czasopismo Humanistyczne, (9), 145-156. , 2018

MeToo -Hungarian STyle

The Ambiguity of Micro-Utopias

Progress and Regress: the Current Status of Art in Two Post-Communist Countries

Mário Kong, Maria do Rosário Monteiro, Maria João Pereira Neto (eds.) Progress(es); Theories and Practices. Leiden: CRC Press, Taylor and Francis Group, 241-246. ISBN: 978-0-8153-7415-2., 2018

The Modern Paradigm of Art and Its Frontiers

A RELÁCIÓESZTÉTIKA IDEIGLENES KÖZÖSSÉGEI

Digital Agora. Proceedings of the Fifth Argumentor Conference

by Bakó Rozália Klára and Gizela Horvath

Argumentor, 2018

With the spread of digital technologies across geographies, age- and social groups, daily communi... more With the spread of digital technologies across geographies, age- and social
groups, daily communicative practices have gone through a deep transformation, both in private and public spaces. The fifth Argumentor Conference (21 September 2018, Oradea, Romania) will be mapping this transformation from multi-disciplinary perspectives offered by philosophy, aesthetics, sociology, and communication studies. Papers are organized in two main chapters, following the conference panels: Argumentation and Rhetoric, and Citizenship and Lifestyle. Let us set the tone for this discussion.

Diskurzusok az alkonyról

by Gizela Horvath and Bakó Rozália Klára

A 2017-es ARGUMENTOR műhely kötete.