My U.F.O.s, Your U.F.O.s

Július Koller’s concept of the U.F.O. – standing for Universal-Cultural Futurological Operations, created in 1970 – was not asci-fi-inspired technological fantasy, but rather functioned as asymbolic framework for an alternative culture. For Koller, the U.F.O. became a space for thought and action positionedoutside official cultural and political structures, while stillreflecting upon them. Through the language of conceptual art, he created a subjective and critical position that offeredalternative responses to the "normalized" reality of his time.
The My U.F.O.s, Your U.F.O.s exhibition focuses on artists whoseworks, in various forms but with similar sensitivity, soughtpossibilities for stepping away from – or reinterpreting – reality. The title points to a collective yet personal use of language,where the “flying object” is not a tangible item, but a mental andvisual construct: an attempt to exit regulated space.
The exhibited works map out alternative artistic positions fromthe 1970s and '80s. Though they represent differing attitudes,what unites them is their response to social normality – notnecessarily overtly political, but deeply critical nonetheless. These “Hungarian U.F.O.s” are not illustrations of Koller’s concept, but independent, parallel positions that developedtheir own visual language and systems of thought – both withinand beyond the culture of their time.
The exhibition also touches on the practice of mail art throughselected works, which served as one of Koller’s most importantmeans of international communication in the early 1970s. This network enabled him to establish relationships – throughcorrespondence and personal encounters – with a number of Hungarian artists, including György Galántai, Géza Perneczky,Endre Tót, Sándor Pinczehelyi, Bálint Szombathy, and László Beke.
The exhibition functions as an associative space – a field wheresymbols, transformations, and coded gestures intersect. Here, the U.F.O. is not only retained as Koller’s concept but becomes abroader Central European cultural metaphor – a vehicle forotherness, outsiderness, and possible shapes of the future.
For many strands of conceptual art, the act of looking, observation, or the question of perception holds centralimportance. Such works examine not only how and what we see but also what it means to see, and what role the viewer plays inthe creation of meaning. Conceptual art of the 1970s and '80s was not only concerned with dismantling objecthood oremphasizing the mediality of language, but also with radically rethinking the relationship between the viewer and the artwork.
The act of seeing and observing here is not merely an aestheticexperience but the thematic core: mapping a complex system ofobservation, presence, embodiment, and social relations.

The My U.F.O.s, Your U.F.O.s exhibition is in close dialogue withthe show The Sinusoid of (Mis)Understanding on view at acb Plus, jointly exploring alternative routes and Central Europeancontexts of conceptual art.