INDIGO

The members of the Indigo group after the shooting of Miklós Erdély's film Vonatút, 1981.

The InDiGo group was active from 1978 to 1986 in Budapest and was organically integrated in the progressive art scene of that period. Members of the group were young artists and intellectuals whose activity was barely tolerated and sometimes prohibited outright. The name of the group is a shortened form of INterDIszciplináris Gondolkozás (Interdisciplinary Thinking) and at the same time it refers to Miklós Erdély’s favourite medium of drawing: carbon paper (indigo in Hungarian). The Indigo group as a medium and a way of thinking combined the essential ideas of avant-garde art of the 1970s: reiteration, sequence, conceptualism, and intermedia. The group was led by Miklós Erdély, and among the members were artists and film makers such as András Böröcz, Ildikó Enyedi, László Révész, János Sugár and János Szirtes.

We can regard the consecutive Krecso [Creativity Exercises] (1975-77) and Fafej [Fantasy Developing Exercises] (1977) – art education courses conducted by Miklós Erdély – as antecedents of Indigo that can be conceptually paralleled with the results of creative research both in the USA (Watzlawick et al) and in Europe (E. Landau), and with the mentality of Fluxus (J. Beuys, R. Filliou). Dóra Maurer and György Galántai also contributed to the development of the Creativity Exercises. The way of thinking developed during these courses was realised in exhibitions. At the beginning, the participants made environments collectively, and in some cases they also presented performances at the openings of exhibitions. Through devising and creating these environments the group functioned as a creative entity, using the paradoxical nature of collective artwork. The exhibitions were characterised by questioning and by trying to expand the limits of contemporary concepts of art, primarily concentrating on mediation. The group’s creative method was built on processes well-known nowadays, such as brain-storming and group therapy.

At the beginning of the 1980s the group’s internal collaboration gradually loosened, and their exhibitions consisted of individual works mostly belonging to the genre of installation and object. In 1981 they took part in the post-conceptual tendencies show, part of the Tendencies exhibition-series that represented the Hungarian art of the 1970s. In 1982 they were invited to the Paris Biennial but were refused official permission to leave Hungary. In 1982-83 they worked at the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest where, by creating a drawing course, they practiced drawing imitative-constitutive and subjective-gesture-like characters based on previously worked out themes. Their exhibitions usually took place in the cultural and educational centres of factories and at clubs popular with the underground culture of that period (i.e. The Young Artists' Club, The Bercsényi Club). The group established an alternative to the academic art education in the détente decade, and also provided a spiritual community for Miklós Erdély, who received no academic appreciation during his life. (Sándor Hornyik and Annamária Szőke, 2008)

Works

• Reconstruction of Temporary Sculpture Made of Cotton Wool (1981), Budapest – Berlin, 2009.

• Dóra Maurer, Kreativitás & Vizualitás (1975–1977). Video based on documentary photographs of the exercises and a damaged copy of the videos. EN transcript. 2015 exhibition.

Publications

• Miklós Erdély, "Kreatív és fantázia-fejlesztő gyakorlatok", in Kreativitás és vizualitás. A kiállítás a Józsefvárosi Képzőművész. Kör munkáját dokumentálja, ed. Tamás Papp, Budapest: Józsefvárosi Kiállítóterem, 1976, pp 5-10; repr., exp., in Tanulmányok a vizuális nevelés köréből, Budapest: MTA Vizuális Kultúrakutató Munkabizottság, 1978, pp 63-73.
  • "Creativity and Fantasy-Developing Exercises", trans. John Bátki, in Kreativitási gyakorlatok, FAFEJ, INDIGO, Budapest, 2008, pp 525-532. (English)
  • "Exerciții de creativitate și de dezvoltare a fanteziei", Idea. Artă + societate/arts + society 49: "Pedagogia lui Erdély", Cluj, 2016, pp 21-26. (Romanian)
  • "Creativity and Fantasy Developing Exercises, 1976-78", in Creativity Exercises: Emancipatory Pedagogies in Art and Beyond, eds. Dóra Hegyi, Zsuzsa László, and Franciska Zólyom, Berlin: Sternberg Press, Leipzig: GfZK—Museum of Contemporary Art, and Budapest: tranzit.hu, 2020, 380 pp. TOC. Publisher, Publisher. (English)

• Indigo, eds. Dániel Erdély (design) and Tivadar Nemesi, Budapest: Magyar Iparművészeti Főiskola, Typo-grafikai tanszék, 1981. Exh. catalogue. (Hungarian)
  • Miklós Erdély, "Művészkijárat".

• Indigo, "Deed of Foundation of the Voluntary Legislative Assembly" [Sep 1982], trans. Zsuzsanna Szegedy-Maszák, in Subversive Practices: Art under Conditions of Political Repression, 60s–80s / South America / Europe, Stuttgart: Württembergischer Kunstverein, 2009. (English)
  • "Gründungsurkunde der Freiwilligen Gesetzgebenden Körperschaft", trans. Judit Koren, in Subversive Praktiken. Kunst unter Bedingungen politischer Repression. 60er–80er / Südamerika / Europa, Stuttgart: Württembergischer Kunstverein, 2009. (German)

• Indigo, "Indigo Peace Call" [c.1983], trans. Zsuzsanna Szegedy-Maszák, in Documents on the Peace Movement in Hungary, ed. Hugh Baldwin, London: European Nuclear Disarmament Hungary Working Group, 1986, pp 12–13; repr. in Kreativitási gyakorlatok, FAFEJ, INDIGO, Budapest, 2008, pp 516–517; repr. in Subversive Practices: Art under Conditions of Political Repression, 60s–80s / South America / Europe, Stuttgart: Württembergischer Kunstverein, 2009. (English)
  • "Indigo-Friedensaufruf", trans. Judit Koren, in Subversive Praktiken. Kunst unter Bedingungen politischer Repression. 60er–80er / Südamerika / Europa, Stuttgart: Württembergischer Kunstverein, 2009. (German)

• János Sugár, "Az INDIGO csoport aktuális képzó'művészeti akciója", AL 3, Mar 1983, pp 22-24. (Hungarian)

• Miklós Erdély, "Rajzkurzus 1982-83, INDIGO - 36", AL 4, Apr 1983, pp 36-37. Text on the invitation to the drawing course of the INDIGO group at the lecture hall of the Museum of Fine Arts, 20 May-12 June 1983. (Hungarian)

Literature

• Zsuzsa Éva Bacsó, "Erdély Miklós és az InDiGo (Erdély művészetpedagógiája és kreativitási kurzusai)", in A modern poszt-jai. Esszék, tanulmányok, dokumentumok a 80-as évek magyar képzőművészetéről, Budapest: ELTE Bölcsésztudományi Kar, 1994, pp 209–219. (Hungarian)

• János Sugár, "Indigo Group", in East Art Map. Contemporary Art and Eastern Europe, ed. IRWIN, London: Afterall, 2006, pp 216-217. (English)

• Sándor Hornyik, Annamária Szőke (eds.), Kreativitási gyakorlatok, FAFEJ, INDIGO. Erdély Miklós művészetpedagógiai tevékenysége 1975-1986 / Creativity Exercises, FAFEJ, INDIGO. On Miklós Erdély’s Art Pedagogical Activity, Budapest: MTA Művészettörténeti Kutatóintézet, Gondolat Kiadó, 2B Alapítvány, and Erdély Miklós Alapítvány, 2008, 532 pp. TOC. Reviews: Dékei (Balkon), Szepesi (Prae). (Hungarian)/(English)
  • Sándor Hornyik, Annamária Szőke, "Creativity Exercises, Fantasy Developing Exercises (FAFEJ) and Inter-Disciplinary-Thinking (InDiGo). Miklós Erdély’s art pedagogical activity, 1975–1986", trans. Ágnes Csonka. Book summary. (English)
  • Sándor Hornyik, Annamária Szőke, "Exerciții de creativitate, Exerciții de Dezvoltare a Fanteziei (FAFEJ) și Gîndire Inter-Disciplinară (InDiGo). Activitatea artistico-pedagogică a lui Miklós Erdély, 1975–1986", Idea. Artă + societate/arts + society 49: "Pedagogia lui Erdély", Cluj, 2016, pp 6-20. (Romanian)

• Annamária Szőke, "Miklós Erdély and the Indigo Group. Photoworks from the 70s and 80s", trans. Ágnes Csonka and Adele Eisenstein, in Miklós Erdély, Vienna: Georg Kargl Fine Arts, 2008, pp 51-54. (English)

• Hans-Jürgen Hafner, "Miklós Erdély und die Indigo Gruppe. Arbeiten aus den 1970er und 80er Jahren", Camera Austria 103–104, 2008, pp 99–100. (German)

• Erdély Miklós: Eredeti és másolat + Indigórajzok / Miklós Erdély: Original and Copy + Indigo Drawings, ed. Annamária Szőke, 2011. (Hungarian)/(English)

Links

• Indigo veg kep, exhibition, 2005.
• Creativity Exercises – Spaces of Emancipatory Pedagogies, series of events at tranzit.hu, Budapest, 2015.
• Indigo in Artportal lexikon (Hungarian)