COURAGE

savienojot kolekcijas

After listening on RFE to the news news regarding the harsh repression of the anti-communist revolt of the workers in the factories of the city of Braşov in November 1987, Doina Cornea openly manifested her solidarity with the protesters. She displayed a placard in front of her house in Cluj and on 18 November 1987 she drafted 160 manifestos, which were spread with the help of her son Leontin Horaţiu Iuhas in the main squares and factories of Cluj (Cornea 2009, 194–195). The Securitate, which closely monitored all her movements, arrested her and her son on 19 November 1987 (Cornea 2006, 203). In order to collect proofs of her guilt, the secret police made two home searches of her private dwelling on 19 and 23 November 1987. On these occasions the Securitate confiscated many documents authored by Doina Cornea, including all the drafts of her letters sent to RFE. These documents were archived in the criminal file created on Doina Cornea. As in many other cases of similar confiscations, the Securitate archives thus ironically became an important repository institution for artefacts of the cultural opposition in Romania.

Artpool organized a symposium to commemorate the 100^th birthday of Marcel Duchamp in cooperation with the Department of Aesthetics at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest (organizers: György Galántai and Péter György). The symposium was preceded by a call for applications announced by Artpool for international artists to cooperate in the event by sending artworks, documents, projects related to the spirit of Duchamp. Among the participants, one finds artists like Vittore Baroni, Robin Crozier, Christo, Klaus Groh, Ruth Wolf Rehfeldt, etc. Artpool organized an exhibition based on the received materials entitled In the spirit of Marcel Duchamp. Concerts, sound presentations, video-screenings, slide projections and short presentations were parts of the program of the symposion. Tibor Szemző (piece for Directed Chance), András Wilhelm & Zoltán Rácz (concert on five sculptures) and István Márta (Multimedia sound improvisation on two sculptures and a video) gave concerts on György Galántai’s sound sculptures. Tamás Szentjóby’s Centaur, Miklós Erdély’s Lecture in Kalocsa and András Szirtes’ Diary were being screened. Ray Johnson’s letters, mail art and sound materials were projected from slides. The following lecturers held five minute-long talks, evoking Duchamp by measuring time with a chess clock: Gábor Andrási, Imre Bak, László Beke, Ákos Birkás, Dezső Ekler, László Földényi F., Péter György, Lóránd Hegyi, Özséb Horányi, Gabriella Kernács, Albart Kováts, Endre Kukorelly, Gábor Pataki, Miklós Peternák, Endre Rózsa T., Talán Sebeő, János Sugár, Endre Szkárosi, Annamária Szőke, Ádám Tábor, Gábor Tóth.

Blažena Despot published a monograph, The Woman Question and Self-Management, in 1987, the book is a result of the age-old consideration of the issue of women's rights and the genesis of the woman question in history, which was reflected in the social relations in socialist Yugoslavia, to which Marxism gave the final seal. In this book, Despot placed the woman question into the context of Marxism and socialist self-management, that is, within the theoretical concept of "Marxist feminism," whose role she sees as a struggle for more women to work on jobs that are not poorly paid and require higher or high qualifications, jobs and salaries that would enable them to support themselves.

In the Woman and Society Feminist Collection there is a presentation by Blaženka Despot, entitled "Marxist Feminism," which forms one of the earlier foundations for the book The Woman Question and Self-Management.