Géza Perneczky

Cabinet exhibition at the Center for Artists’ Publications

The exhibition is devoted to the conceptual work of Hungarian-born artist Géza Perneczky, created since the early 1970s. He developed conceptual works, conceptual photographs and artist books. Perneczky’s artworks can be located not only in conceptual art, but also in mail art and the late Fluxus movement. His works are represented internationally in important collections. The exhibition is not only intended to honor Géza Perneczky on the occasion of his 80th birthday at the end of May this year, but also to thank him for the donation of his important Soft Geometry Archives to the Center for Artists’ Publications.

Among his first works are five numbers of a hand-printed monthly periodical in 50 to 100 copies with original collages of concrete and conceptual art, which later became known and famous as Five Books. The books appeared in Hungary in Samizdat. His other artist books and photo works were then already created in Germany.

“Art-Ball (concepts like commentary)” from 1972 is one of his first photo series in black and white. In this series, he explores the constitution of art with a ping-pong ball inscribed with the word “art.” Or he has the word “art” reflected in soap bubbles. He asks not only what art is and how it appears, but also with what unreal working methods it comes into being. In “Senses” (1973) he thematizes the various senses of man, and in “Mirror” (1973) Perneczky uses a mirror to become a man with three heads or four feet.

In a third corpus of works, Perneczky dealt with stamping or stamping. He used spoons, combs, coins, but also bottle caps or the bottoms of liquor bottles for this purpose, as for example in “Spirit Stamps” (1975). These works also appeared in series of about 100 copies. In “Bird-twittering” (1980) he dealt with the sound of bird calls, in “Very Alternative Art” (1981) he printed the word “shit” in various languages on toilet paper, and in “Cologne Cathedral” (1984) he playfully turns Cologne Cathedral upside down.

Géza Perneczky (*1936, Hungary) is not only a visual artist, but also a Hungarian art historian, writer, curator and educator. After his emigration to Germany in December 1970, he devoted himself mainly to artistic activities. In addition, he taught at schools and worked as a freelancer for Deutsche Welle and Deutschlandfunk. Since the early 1970s, he has brought together in Cologne an internationally important archive, the Soft Geometry Archive, with approximately 10,000 artistic items of assemblages, graphics, collages, photographs and correspondence, which is now in the Center for Artists’ Publications.

His works are in MoMA in New York, Getty Research Institute in Santa Monica, Centre Pompidou in Paris, Artpool Art Research Center in Budapest and many other museums in Europe. He participated in exhibitions in Hungary, Germany and other European countries.

Géza Perneczky lives in Cologne and Budapest.