From State-Controlled to Neoliberal Art Trade: The Case of the Artéria Galéria (Artery Gallery) in Hungary

This paper examines the activity of one of the first artist-initiated commercial galleries in state-socialist Hungary that was independent of the state-controlled institutional system: the Artery Gallery (1986–2008), an initiative of twenty-two artists in the town of Szentendre. The case study explores the circumstances under which a collective of local artists, who were critical of the political system, was granted a gallery space by the municipality at the town centre amid the decentralization process of the art infrastructural system in the 1980s. The Artery Gallery was not a typical commercial gallery in the sense that it was operated by a loose artists’ collective, incorporating a wide range of artists and styles, including representatives of geometric abstract and neo-avant-garde art, surrealism, dadaism, happening and experimental music, among others. Their primary aim was to create a self-sustainable model for trading local and underrepresented contemporary art, and they sought to maintain founding values such as the autonomy of art production – as opposed to politically approved art – and openness to the combination of local artistic traditions and contemporary trends. While the gallery aspired to act both as a commercial unit and a representative art venue within the city’s cultural life, the conflict between artistic and economic considerations increasingly undermined its activities, which demonstrates the transformation of the framework of art production due to the liberalization of its institutional system prior to 1989. By reconstructing the history of the Artery Gallery as well as its predecessor, the Szentendrei Grafikai Műhelyés Galéria (Szentendre Graphics Workshop and Gallery, 1980) based on publications, archival material, and interviews with former members and managers, the paper aims at a better understanding of how such initiatives navigated the changing economic and political climate of late socialism.