GENDERED ARTISTIC POSITIONS AND SOCIAL VOICES: POLITICS, CINEMA, AND THE VISUAL ARTS IN STATE-SOCIALIST AND POST-SOCIALIST HUNGARY by Beáta Hock Submitted to the Department of Gender Studies, Central European University, Budapest In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Supervisor: Professor Susan Zimmermann CEU eTD Collection Budapest, Hungary 2009 CEU eTD Collection DECLARATION I hereby declare that no parts of this thesis have been submitted towards a degree at any other institution other than CEU, nor, to my knowledge, does the thesis contain unreferenced material or ideas from other authors. Beáta Hock CEU eTD Collection CEU eTD Collection ABSTRACT The aim of this dissertation has been to explore what factors shaped artistic representations of women and the artistic agendas and self-positioning of individual women cultural producers in Hungary’s state-socialist and post-socialist periods. In using gender as an analytical category within the framework of a carefully conceptualized East/West comparison as well as a state- socialist/post-socialist comparison, the thesis historicizes and contextualizes gender in multidimensional ways. Positing that particular state formations and the dominant ideologies therein interpellate individuals in particular ways and thus might better enable certain subjectivites and constrain others, the thesis sets out to identify the kind of messages that the two different political systems in Hungary communicated to women in general through their political discourses, actual legislation, and social policies. Within this socio-historical framing, the research traces how female subject positions emerge in the respective periods, and turn into speaking positions with women cultural producers in the specific fields of cinema and the visual arts. By carefully exploring the spaces, dynamics, and options available for feminist art production in both periods, the analysis critically reconsiders the alleged absences and presences of feminist art in Hungary. The dissertation contributes to the gendered analysis of the two specific fields of visual culture, which in the case of film studies implies original primary research and theoretical analysis which CEU eTD Collection for the first time applies feminist film theory to Hungarian film production in the second half of the 20th century. The analysis emerges from an interdiscipinary research, both on the level of theoretical inquiry and methodology. It brings together the approaches and insights of a number of scholarly fields (feminist theory, art history, critical art theory, film studies, post-colonial theory, and feminist social science) to explore the degree to which the material and ideological conditions of cultural production impact issues of both content and style as well as authorial positions. To argue a complex case, the thesis employs a range of methodological approaches (critical analysis, literature review, interviews, interpretation of art products). This approach—reading society as a heterogeneous “text” and regarding cultural producers as social subjects—maps the interplay and mutual determinations of social formation, the prevalent codes of art making, and the ideologies operating both within a given society and art world. CEU eTD Collection TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES IV INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER I CONSTRUCTING AND BRINGING GENDERED IDENTITIES INTO REPRESENTATION 9 I.1 “WOMAN”: A POLITICALLY IRRELEVANT CATEGORY? UNSTRUCTURED FEMALE IDENTITIES IN CONTEMPORARY HUNGARIAN SOCIETY 9 I.2 CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES ON SOCIAL PROCESSES: DEFINING KEY TERMS AND APPROACHES 13 I.2.I SOCIETY AS TEXT 14 I.2.II THE POLITICAL IMPORT OF REPRESENTATION 16 I.2.III THE POLITICIZATION OF ART THEORY, AESTHETIC TERMS, AND ART 19 I.3 LOCALIZING FEMINIST THINKING 22 I.3.I THE DANGER OF SELF-COLONIZATION AND EAST/WEST DICHOTOMIES WHEN LOOKING FOR FEMINISM 22 I.3.II CONTESTED FEMINIST IDENTIFICATION, INTENTIONALITY AND OTHER DILEMMAS OF OPERATING WITH FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES ON WOMEN’S ARTISTIC PRODUCTION 28 I.3.III REDEFINING THE POLITICAL: TWO GUIDING ASPECTS (A FEMINIST COUNTER-PUBLIC SPHERE; FEMINIST AND/OR FEMININE CULTURAL TEXTS) 38 I.4 AN INTERDISCIPLINARY ANALYSIS 46 CHAPTER II EMANCIPATION: AN EXPENDABLE POLITICAL GOAL 51 II.1 RE-ASSESSING THE STATE-SOCIALIST PAST AND TAKING A PERSPECTIVE ON THE PRESENT 54 II.1.I AN EMERGING FEMINIST SCHOLARSHIP ON CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE. LOCALIZING KNOWLEDGE-PRODUCTION REVISITED 54 II.1.II SOME DIFFICULTIES 58 II.2 THE METAMORPHOSES OF THE STATE’S POLITICAL MESSAGE FOR WOMEN AND RELATED SOCIAL CHANGES SINCE 1945 66 II.2.I WOMEN’S POLITICAL AND CIVIL RIGHTS AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION. SHARING POLITICAL CAPITAL 68 II.2.II PATTERNS IN WOMEN’S EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT. SHARING ECONOMIC/MATERIAL CAPITAL 72 II.2.III DECLARED POLITICAL PROMISES—UNDECLARED INTENTIONS. READING BETWEEN THE LINES CEU eTD Collection OF THE MESSAGE 82 II.3 “ONLY THEMSELVES TO BLAME”: SOCIETY’S CODICIL TO THE POLITICAL MESSAGE 90 II.3.I POLITICAL RHETORIC VERSUS THE REALITY OF LIFE-PRACTICES. SHARING SOCIAL/CULTURAL CAPITAL 90 II.3.II “DOUBLE BURDEN” VERSUS “CHOICEOISIE”. RECONCILING WORK AND FAMILY LIFE 104 II.4 RECEIVING THE MESSAGE: CHANGING PERCEPTIONS AND CONSTRUCTIONS OF GENDERED SOCIAL ROLES AND IDENTITIES 109 II.5 CONCLUSION AND IDENTIFYING SOME FEMINIST ISSUES OF THE “HERE AND NOW” 118 i CHAPTER III WOMEN AND/IN HUNGARIAN CINEMA (INDUSTRY) IN THE PAST SIXTY YEARS 127 III.1.I THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS 127 III.1.I TRENDS IN EXISTING FEMINIST FILM THEORY AND TESTING THEIR APPLICABILITY 129 III.1.II A CRITIQUE OF COLD WAR THINKING AND THE EASY DISMISSALS OF THE CULTURAL PRODUCTION OF THE STATE-SOCIALIST-PERIOD 138 III.1.III THE NUMERICAL SURVEY METHOD AND CORPUS ANALYSIS—METHODOLOGICAL QUESTIONS 143 III.2 WOMEN AS REPRESENTED IN THE PROFESSION: A QUANTITATIVE SURVEY OF WOMEN’S INCLUSION IN HUNGARIAN FILM INDUSTRY, 1945–2005 149 III.3 WOMEN DIRECTORS REPRESENTING WOMEN 155 III.4 WOMAN REPRESENTED IN HUNGARIAN FILM PRODUCTION: AN OVERVIEW OF FILM CONTENT AND FILM TEXT 166 III.4.I PRODUCING NEW ROLE MODELS: THE “PRODUCTION MOVIES” OF THE 1950S 166 III.4.II THE 1960S: HISTORICAL PARABLES AND MODELS FOR THE PRESENT 173 III.4.III THE 1970S AND 80S: THE POETRY OF THE EVERY-DAY 176 III.4.IV THE 1990S AND AFTER: STRUCTURAL RECONFIGURATION AND THE DISSIPATION OF MEANING 182 III.5 CONCLUSION 192 CHAPTER IV ARTISTS, ARTWORKS, AND SUBJECT POSITIONS: THE ACTIVITY OF HUNGARIAN WOMEN VISUAL ARTISTS FROM 1945 TILL TODAY 197 IV.1 THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL QUESTIONS 197 IV.1.I ISSUES AND STRATEGIES IN FEMINIST ART CRITICISM AND ART PRACTICE, AND AN EMERGING FEMINIST DISCOURSE IN CONTEMPORARY HUNGARIAN VISUAL ARTS 197 IV.1.II METHODOLOGICAL QUESTIONS CONCERNING THE QUANTITATIVE SURVEY AND THE INTERVIEWS 203 IV.2 WOMEN AS REPRESENTERS IN THE FIELD OF VISUAL ARTS, 1945–95 206 IV.2.I A BRIEF SOCIAL HISTORY OF THE VISUAL ARTS IN HUNGARY AFTER 1945 206 IV.2.II AN OVERVIEW OF WOMEN’S PARTICIPATION IN THE HUNGARIAN ART SCENE, 1945–2000S 220 IV.3 SELF-REPRESENTERS. ARTISTS AND OEUVRES THAT HAVE MOBILIZED FEMINIST INTERPRETATIVE APPROACHES 235 IV.3.I NEGOTIATORS OF FEMALE IDENTITY: WITHOUT STRATEGY (ÁGNES SZÉPFALVI, ESZTER RADÁK) 235 IV.3.II THE LONE HEROINE: A SELF-ADMITTED FEMINIST ARTIST (ORSHI DROZDIK) 246 IV.3.III TOWARDS FEMININE TEXTS (EMESE BENCZÚR, RÓZA EL-HASSAN) 254 IV.3.IV VENTURING OUT INTO THE PUBLIC (KRISZTA NAGY) 265 IV.4 CONCLUSIONS 276 CHAPTER V CONCLUSION 280 CEU eTD Collection APPENDICES AND TABLES 287 APPENDIX 1 287 APPENDIX 2 289 TABLES 293 BIBLIOGRAPHY 301 ii iii CEU eTD Collection LIST OF TABLES Table 1 Women's participation in various behind-the-scene positions of Hungarian feature film production, 1945- 2005 Table 2 Number and proportion of women in selected behind-the-scene positions of Hungarian feature film production, 1945-2005 Table 3 Number and proportion of male and female artists selected for the individual parts of the exhibition series The History of Hungarian Art in the 20th Century Table 4 Number and proportion of male and female artists mentioned in the individual chronological chapters of the book Die zweite Öffentlichkeit: Kunst in Ungarn im 20. Jahrhundert Table 5 Number and proportion of male and female artists in individual exhibitions, 1945–mid-1990s Table 6 Number and proportion of male and female artists in relevant artists’ groups, collectives and initiatives, 1945–2000s CEU eTD Collection iv INTRODUCTION This dissertation sets out to explore what factors shaped artistic representations of women and the artistic agendas and self-positioning of individual women cultural producers in Hungary’s state-socialist and post-socialist periods. I distinguish these two periods because one of the hypotheses of my inquiry is that political systems mediate messages that shape female subjectivity and constructs of femininity through women-related legislation and politics as well as social- political discourses, whereby they better enable certain kinds of subject positions for women than others. I look at how these subject positions emerge and turn into speaking positions with women cultural producers in the fields of cinema and the visual arts in Hungary in the two respective periods, i.e., 1945–89 and from 1989 till today. Acknowledging that the interaction of social and cultural practices of representation is crucial to the constitution of identity, but not assuming that this interaction is direct and comprehensive, i1 explore what other factors have come into play to