KÁROLY HALÁSZ

Halász Károly (1946, Paks) is multimedia artist whose programmatic strategy developed inside the group known as the Pécs workshop that was active in Hungary during the 60’s and 70’s. he works of Halasz, from the start, have opposed the oicial esthetic of social realism and were based on rich legacy of the local constructivism and avant-garde, expressed in the local idiom of abstract geometry. Inspired by his own experience from the position of Hungarian artists and culture in the international context, and by inluences from the contemporary avant-garde practices of the world (mostly Fluxus), Halász turned to performance, installation, conceptual art, ready-mades and TV as the most powerful medium of visual communication. In the beginning, he combined the geometric painting and TV image/apparatus into a united visual composition in which geometrical elements, symbolizing the eternal Logos, were imposed over the rapidly changing electronic images, which dully emitted the contents of the quotid- ian reality. In time, Halasz deconstructed the TV apparatus. he series of performances of self and various banal< low-tech objects he started incorporating into the familiar TV frame. By this gesture of adoption and literal physical occupation, he deconstructed TV as the medium of ideological manipulation and, at the same time, pointed out its inherent potential as the means for a more democratic, interactive communication.