In the late 1980s, a movement known as the transavant-garde emerged internationally, offering a contrast to the avant-garde art that seemed to have exhausted itself by the 1970s. The term, which encompasses a wide range of artistic approaches, was first coined by the renowned Italian art historian Achille Bonito Oliva in 1979. Essentially, any work that was created in the 1980s but drew on past influences in its concept can be classified under this label. The broadness of the term is closely tied to the artistic vision of its creator. According to Oliva, the mid-1970s marked a crisis in the idea of constant innovation, which had been a central theme of 20th-century avant-garde movements. Artists working in the transavant-garde style became more focused on looking back rather than forging ahead. Their paintings often referenced various periods in art history—such as Mannerism, Classicism, Romanticismand Expressionism—and were typically reinterpreted from a deeply personal perspective. However, it wasn't just the imagery from the past that influenced these works; often, the style of transcription and interpretation itself was rooted in historical approaches.
In Hungary, the theorist of this new artistic perspective was Lóránd Hegyi, who, building on Achille Bonito Oliva’s concept of the transavantgarde and contemporaneous with its emergence, sought to interpret and define the phenomenon. Under the title "new sensibility", he curated a series of exhibitions—not to introduce a new style per se, but to present the rise of a new creative attitude within the Hungarian context.
According to Hegyi’s typology, the new sensibility stood in contrast to the modernist avant-garde with its expansionism and conceptualism, fostering instead a mode of creation marked by resignation, introspection, and a pursuit of sensuality. In Hungarian painting of the 1980s, this manifested as subjective historicism and radical eclecticism—artworks composed from a fusion of historical references and stylistic elements, celebrating the cult of individual expression. The renewed popularity of painting during this period was characterised by gestural representation and a bold, expressive use of colour.
In Hungary, this new outlook was shared by both emerging young artists and established figures from the avant-garde. Among those featured in Hegyi’s exhibitions were Klára Borbás, Károly Halász, István Kalmár, El Kazovszkij, Ilona Keserü, Dezső Korniss, István Nádler, Sándor Pincehelyi, Dezső Tandori, Gábor Záborszky, Károly Kelemen, Zoltán Ádám, Ákos Birkás, József Bullás, György Cseszlai, András Koncz, István Mazzag, László Mulasics, Gábor Ősz, Károly Pollacsek, Zoltán Sebestyén, Tamás Soós, György Szőnyei, Gábor Szörtsey, Imre Bak, László Fehér, Zsigmond Károlyi, Károly Klimó, Attila Kovács, and János Szirtes.
The works of new sensibility artists also formed the backbone of landmark exhibitions such as Freshly Painted (Frissen festve) and Eclecticism '85 (Eklektika ‘85). Alongside the Budapest exhibitions, key representatives of the new painting movement—Imre Bak, Ákos Birkás, Károly Kelemen, and István Nádler—were featured at the 1986 Venice Biennale, while László Fehér gained international recognition at the 1990 Venice Biennale.
From the group of artists showcased in Hegyi’s exhibitions, the present gallery exhibition includes selected works from the period by István Nádler, László Fehér, and Tamás Soós. Furthermore, we present a selection of works by Orshi Drozdik, who was active during the same era but emigrated in 1978—first to the Netherlands, and later to New York—where she continued her artistic practice.
//Mónika Zsikla//
