Art Basel Miami Beach 2022

acb Gallery | Booth S8

For Art Basel Miami Beach 2022, acb presents a comprehensive survey of Tót’s subversive works in the 1970s, focusing on the photographs, street actions, typewriting and mail art pieces that propelled him to international recognition as one of the most important figures of Central and Eastern European neo-avantgarde conceptual art. 

With Pierre Restany’s words: “Endre Tót [is] the Yves Klein of Mail Art, a postal monochrome.” Tót started his career as a painter, and a constant dialogue with the tradition of painting has always been present in his work even after he broke radically with this medium in 1971. His artistic career started in the early 1960s, when he made lyrical, calligraphic paintings closely related to Informel and Abstract Expressionism, while at the end of the decade, Pop Art and Hard Edge painting also had a serious influence on his practice. Finding, however, the traditional genres and artistic frameworks to be too narrow, Tót turned to conceptualism and devoted his work to three trademark concepts, Nothing/Zer0, Rain and Joy/Gladness, that he explored in his telegrams, postcards, films, posters, actions and artist books. Tót corresponded with various representatives of Fluxus, and out of necessity, worked predominantly in mail art, since transporting his work out of Socialist Hungary proved nearly impossible.

His prolific and multifaceted work subsequently earned him international fame. He took part in the special Envois section of the 1971 Paris Biennial, as well as the first Mail Art Exhibition of 1972 with his Zer0 works. His first international solo exhibition was organized by the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, and notable appearances in the course of the 1970s and 1980s include the Fluxshoe travelling group exhibition in the UK, group shows of the Moderna Museet, Pompidou, MoMA, and a solo show in Galerie René Block. In Hungary, Tót carried out the first of his actions in front of the camera. He realized his first TÓTalJOYS demonstration in Geneva in 1976, followed by further public actions in Amsterdam and Berlin, where he emigrated in 1978. In 1980 he settled in Cologne where he lived until 2022. Since late 2022 he has been living in Berlin.

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