HAB’s latest exhibition tells the story of an extraordinary artistic cooperation across the Iron Curtain. One of the main protagonists is the op-art superstar, Hungarian-born Victor Vasarely (1906-1997), who emigrated to France, and the other is János Fajó (1937-2018), who was faithful to the modernist tradition of geometric abstraction but active in socialist Hungary. Not only did they share the recognition of the world-conquering power of modern aesthetic forms, but they also actively contributed to it: their joint work resulted in works of art (screen prints and multiples) which, although made within the borders of the Hungarian People’s Republic, are part of Vasarely’s oeuvre. Their collaboration fitted into the op-art master’s long-term, Cold War strategy of using his own – popular – art to break the Soviet establishment’s entrenched anti-abstractionism. Vasarely was thinking in planetary terms, as Fajó said of him: „he wanted to expand, to conquer the world”. And Fajó helped, taking advantage of the 1980s revival of the happiest barracks’ private art market. The exhibition tells this untold story, through works by Vasarely and Fajó that have never been shown together.

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