Gábor Tóth (3)

Gábor Tóth (1950, Budapest, Hungary) – poet, artist, performer, video-artist. He is actively working in the related fields of the contemporary art, including visual and sound poetry, actions, performances, free musical improvisations. He was the initiator of the foundation of the international alternative art-publishing house “Experimental Art Publisher,” he is also the founder and publisher of the artistic literary magazine “Laza Lapok,” dedicated to the marginal phenomena in the Hungarian and foreign art. In the 1980s he announced the establishment of the “world-wide net-brain” association “Unintelligent Art Association.” He is one of the founders of the group of free musical improvisation “Tales Co” (jointly with Sőrés and Kovács, Budapest). Among the released albums – noise music, performance, happening, etc. – are such as: Tales (1995), Out of Jazz (1996), Gothico/Barokko (1996), Twelve (1997) and others. Tóth is the author of numerous brochures, booklets and books of experimental nature, among them are the following ones: First Dimensional Album (Leeds: Onga Press, 1972), Information – Contra information (Milano: Modulo Ed., 1973), Visual Topology I., II., III (Utrecht: Exp/Press, 1974-75), Analytical poem (Utrecht: Exp/Press, 1975), Self-adhesives ideas (Budapest: U.A.A. Products, 1983), Voice of Silence (Budapest: Talesco, 1997), and many others. Within the series “Experimental Art Publisher books” he has published a trilogy: Fluxus and the visual aspects of the grammatical relations (jointly with B. Szombathy, Leeds: Onga Press, 1974), Physical and semiotical information (jointly with B. Szombathy, Leeds: Onga Press, 1975), Poetical objects of the urbanical environment (jointly with K. Ladik, F. Zagoricnik, B. Szombathy, Leeds: Onga Press, 1976). In the 1980s Tóth started the new brand of art communication “Personal Communication As Art.” His art-slogans released as stickers became very popular and penetrated into the International Network Culture. Among the most popular ones are such as: “Artists Go Home!”, “Keep it away from ART!”, “Sorry! No Art Today!”, “I am not responsible for art!”, “Help! I am an artist” and others. He conducted twelve solo exhibitions in Hungary and abroad, participated in more than 200 group exhibitions. He is the director of nine films, including such as: Visual-semantic film (1975), Marked celluloid I., II (1976), My ideas – handwrited film (1976), Made in Hungary (1976), Experimental animation (1982); and of a number of video-artistic productions, among them are: Art doesn’t calm me down! (1983), Cyrano (1983), Self-dialog (1985), and others. Among the poet’s sound-poetic and lingua-artistic productions are the following ones: Activity music (MC, 1976), Concretevoice (MC, 1978), Poetry-voice (MC, 1994), Digested Space (CD, 1996), Saxophon Lover (CD, 1997), Plain (CD, 1998), MANYADADA (CD, 1999), Rhapsody in Noise (CD, 2000). He took part in numerous festivals of contemporary art, since 1968 he has held artistic actions, including the ones in collaboration with J. Valoch, N. Lachovic, B. Vautier, P. Horobin, M. Cantsin. He is the author of a large number of publications in various magazines, literary miscellanies, catalogues and anthologies. Gabór Tóth lives and works in Budapest (Hungary).