Endre Tót: Demo

Adaptation to the constraints imposed by a political regime has been the rule for artist Endre Tót who demonstrates that restriction is also a source of creative force—something that is sorely lacking in a society devoid of imagination and vision.

“Endre Tót pokes fun at this society, using simple gestures to express his determination to avoid being taken in. The impoverished artist with no means of support succeeds in finding his independence by cultivating a form of optimism, often just a façade, that helps him cope with extremely oppressive situations such as the Hungarian regime in the 1970s. The negation of the individual by a dictatorship led him to use the figure zero as a symbol of “people who are nothing”, denouncing the evil system that restrained him but which ultimately inspired his most relevant work.

The mischievous and provocative game Tót plays manages to flout the rules, for example those against expressing opinions, with a valueless symbol that seems to say nothing. The same dark poetic irony runs through his Nowhere series, emphasising the emptiness of a society that makes individuals into mere pawns serving its totalitarian ideology.”

Dominique Mathieu – August 2022