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Untitled

Photo: Adam Sakovy
Photo: Adam Sakovy
Photo: Adam Sakovy
/1
    • Untitled
  • 1971
  • used envelope mounted on cardboard, stamp, adhesive tape
  • 45 × 33,3 cm
Július Koller responded systematically to the world around him. In his personal archive, he carefully arranged factographic circles of personal, social, cultural and political data, creating an idiosyncratic taxonomy of images. Taken all together these images create an exceptionally extensive domain; a culture of consumption and the products of mass media, determined by the ideologies of the divided, bipolar world of that time. The material composition and arrangement of an archive follows on from the ideas and attitudes that Koller formulated in his 1969 manifesto on Cosmohumanistic Culture. An undated note authored by Koller reads: “For me the entire arsenal of mass-communication means or media – photographs, postcards, magazines, newspapers, books (reproductions) – is a reality suitable for portrayal. These things are part of contemporary life and they are real, numerous, and importunate as never before in human history.” The accumulated documents are partner to the key tenets of Koller’s Antihappenings. They form the working material for his actions and are in and of themselves not only an archive to derive from, but are intertwined with it in manifold ways. D.G.