In the late 1950s, in Lianozovo, a town near Moscow, artists and writers opened their homes to show their artworks. Ilya Kabakov, Erik Bulatov, Orim Sidur and later Nikita Alexeyev and Orim Zakharov provided the model for the apartment theatre of Péter Halász in Budapest, and the illegal Monday Free University initiated by Miklós Szabó and Pál Szalai in 1978 as well. The samizdat boutique for uncensored publications opened in László Rajk’s apartment in January 1981. These initiatives all tried to break down the boundaries between public and private spaces, not necessarily as a political movement, but by creating parallel, independent culture.
After the death of architect, stage designer and artist László Rajk (1949–2019), his atelier became empty. Later it functioned as a temporary home for the production for design students of FreeSZFE. On 29 September 2021, it will be open to free art. The space is called just as Rajk has left the name on the door: Art Department.
To visit, please make an appointment via email: artdepartmentspace@gmail.com
