Oral History Interview with Gyöngy Laky, 2007 December 11-12
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Oral history interview with Gyöngy Laky, 2007 December 11-12 Funding for this interview was provided by the Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America. Funding for the digital preservation of this interview was provided by a grant from the Save America's Treasures Program of the National Park Service. Contact Information Reference Department Archives of American Art Smithsonian Institution Washington. D.C. 20560 www.aaa.si.edu/askus Transcript Preface The following oral history transcript is the result of a recorded interview with Gyöngy Laky on December 11 and 13, 2007. The interview took place in San Francisco, California, and was conducted by Mija Riedel for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. This interview is part of the Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America. Gyöngy Laky has reviewed the transcript and has made corrections and emendations. The reader should bear in mind that they are reading a transcript of spoken, rather than written, prose. Interview MIJA RIEDEL: This is Mija Riedel for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, interviewing Gyöngy Laky at the artist's home and studio in San Francisco, California, on December 11, 2007. This is disc number one. And we have decided to begin with what's happening right now, which is your current—well, your current big solo exhibition at Braunstein/Quay Gallery [November 15 - December 22, 2007] here in the city. GYÖNGY LAKY: And for me and for my work, this is what I would call a large exhibition. I haven't counted, but I think there are some 26 pieces in the exhibition, several of them being what I would, again, call major works and a number of medium-sized works. So it's, let's say, a big window on my studio practice. MS. RIEDEL: And there are large wall pieces; there are language pieces; there are baskets. So it's a variety of— it's an inclusive exhibition of the type of work you've been working on for quite a while as well. MS. LAKY: Yes, it is a good portrait of who I am and where I am now. The other thing that has been interesting to me about this exhibition is that I feel as if I've found out a lot about myself, both preparing for it and in conversations with people. Now every time I make a statement that's really a solid statement—"Here's what I think"—I always find some contradiction to it. When I lived in India, every time I thought I understood something, I would find several contradictions. And every time I talked about India after coming home in 1971, I would find all kinds of exceptions to every statement I made. So I want to be a little careful. But I would say this exhibition embodies a lot of both my current thinking and my past work. I've also been able to see more clearly than often in my studio life that there are themes that connect to my past, to my education, to how I grew up, to what happened to me along the way. In this exhibition, I've seen that very clearly and had some very interesting kinds of epiphanies about who I am and how I got here and why I do what I do. MS. RIEDEL: Tell me one. Let's start—what are they? MS. LAKY: Well, here we're talking about the end of 2007. And I was joking—well, let's talk about 2008. I'd say that's very characteristic of me, looking forward, but this experience, because it's in the framework of a war, catapulted me back to my early childhood. The— MS. RIEDEL: You were born in Hungary, 1944? MS. LAKY: Yes, 1944, in Budapest, and it was still wartime. It was a terrible time. And for the next few years, it was a terrible time. Essentially, when I was four years old, my parents decided that they couldn't stay in Hungary any longer. And so first my father left and then my mother left. That entire story is a fascinating one that has been covered in my Bancroft Library oral history at UC Berkeley [University of California]. It was one of those dramatic stories of escape: my dad was kidnapped and imprisoned by the communists as they were solidifying their control over the Iron Curtain eastern countries. He had been working for the Americans; they drove him out of the country in the trunk of a car with only his formal attire, his tails, because he thought he was going to be going directly to the White House and debriefing people. MS. RIEDEL: [Laughs.] MS. LAKY: He had gone to school in the United States; he had gone to college here and he spoke English very well. So, of course, the Americans hired him in Budapest after the war, as we are doing with Iraqis now. Those who are smart and able and good with English, we're hiring them. And as now, as then, it puts these people often in great jeopardy, so— MS. RIEDEL: Your father was working with the Red Cross. MS. LAKY: Not the Red Cross, with the American Legation, with the refugee issue, repatriating Hungarians, until he realized that this was crazy, that no Hungarian in his or her right mind would want to come back at that time, because it was so awful. So it's hard—we forget that history, and, in fact, somebody just gave me a book that I'm about to read which is about the '56 revolution in Hungary. And in '48, when my father left— MS. RIEDEL: Laszlo was his name. MS. LAKY: Laszlo Laky. He was in prison with a man he called the architect of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. Hungarians thought the moment they stood up to the Soviets, the U.S. would be there to back them. But, of course, the Suez Canal thing, I think it was going on then. The Americans were nowhere to be found when kids were jumping on tanks with jars of jam to obliterate the vision of the guys driving them. So it was that kind of bravery and fighting on the streets that came later in 1956. But my father understood that the revolt was coming. Everyone did understand that the situation in Hungary couldn't continue as it was; it was getting worse by the minute. So my dad got out in the trunk of a car, but my mom was left there with the three of us children. MS. RIEDEL: Zyta and your brothers, who are Mat and— MS. LAKY: Mattias and my older brother, Laszlo, and I. Just a little aside, we were given very Hungarian names— not so much my oldest brother, who was named after my father—so that we would always know we were Hungarian. We got typical Hungarian names so that when you say them, any European would probably say, oh, you are Hungarian—[they laugh]—just in case we got lost in the war. Now, you see the mentality? Would a mother and father think, oh, gee, I might lose my children because of the circumstances around me? We're not used to that here in the United States, but there, and I'm sure in Iraq, it's like that every minute; you feel like you're going to lose the people dear and near to you, so. [The difficulty we later faced, much like our Iraqi collaborators now, was that the U.S. did not make any effort in 1948 to allow my father and our family to immigrate to America. For the rest of this story, read my Bancroft Library oral history.] Now, let's flip back to this exhibition—the dean of the College of Environmental Design made a little speech about my work at a reception for alumni we held in the gallery recently. His phrase was "ornery and elegant." MS. RIEDEL: [Laughs.] MS. LAKY: And all of us in the room said, oh, perfect. I think the "ornery" comes from this—irritation is not quite the right word. I'm very, very, very, very deeply troubled by the state of the militarized responses of the United States. And several people seeing this work have called it edgy, oblique, sharp. The descriptors are fascinating to me. I knew that was there, but I didn't know to what extent. At the same time, people do call the work elegant and luscious and lots of other—other kinds of words that are wonderful to hear. But if you just walk through and look around, there is an edginess, an irritability about circumstances that is conveyed by the whole. MS. RIEDEL: There's also a great sense of humor that we discussed, too. MS. LAKY: That comes out. Yes, there's humor, too. MS. RIEDEL: There really is. There's a wit about it, especially with the globalization piece that's been spelled W- A-R and R-A-M and M-A-R. I mean, there's a cleverness that makes it fun—you're laughing and pricked all at once. MS. LAKY: That is definitely there for me. I feel often that I am being slightly funny or humorous or pranksterish. I've never thought of myself as having a sharp or keen wit, but I know I enjoy reaching for that in my work. MS. RIEDEL: Can you think way back to the piece called That Word [1989]? MS.