Tamás Király. Out of the Box

Tamás KIRÁLY

Out of the Box

The exhibition of Tamás Király (1952–2013) is the first large-scale retrospective presentation of the artist's oeuvre in Hungary, whose activity cannot be classified into traditional genres and trends. Obviously, his work is mainly related to dressing and fashion, but in his perception, clothing is a border area where fashion, film, theatre, performance and art meet. His clothes are at once costumes, mobile sculptures, futuristic transformations, and the future-looking creations of an artist ahead of his own age.

The exhibition aims to give a comprehensive picture of Tamás Király's career of over three decades, which began in Budapest in the early 1980s, when the artist became an emblematic figure of the underground scene in a short time not only with his street "fashion shows", performative walks, but also with his boutique selling casual wear for those interested. In the 1980s, Petőfi Csarnok was the venue for his fashion shows. He organized there the emblematic shows called Baby’s Dream, Boy’s Dream, Animal’s Dream and Király.

His work of this period culminated in the Dressater Berlin fashion show, where he was the only Eastern European designer to exhibit along with Claudia Skoda or Vivienne Westwood. Király's creations were considered unique even in this avant-garde scene. The conceptual and visual radicalism of his clothes excelled even in this form-breaking scene. Király continued his "total art" fashion shows after 1989, which were hosted by the Sziget Festival several times in the 2000s, where his creations and ideas of dressing reached much wider and diverse audiences.

Király was always interested in transformation and processes. He used the cheapest materials for his creations and often reused clothes and their accessories. It was not eternity that excited him, rather he sought the most appropriate answer to a particular moment and situation through clothing. For him, the most important aspect was the effect his creations had during the shows, not to preserve his work for posterity. His creations were mostly made in an ephemeral manner, and he did not consider documenting his work as a priority. Therefore, the exhibition has to be  based on the material that has survived to reveal the visual atmosphere that was characteristic of Király's fashion shows. It is his diverse and cross-border on the edges activity that makes his oeuvre highly original and always relevant on the Hungarian - and we might well say, on the international – art scene.

The exhibition brochure is AVAILABLE HERE. 

Curator: Katalin Timár