The starting point for the exhibition "If you are manipulated, manipulate back" is a quote from Gyula Pauer's 1972 manifesto, which focuses internationally on the legacy of Hungarian art from 1960-80 that he helped to shape conceptually under the slogan "Hungarian Neo-Avant-Garde". The exhibition deliberately shifts this focus and focuses on exemplary conceptual positions of a young generation of Hungarian artists.
With the exhibition "If you are manipulated, manipulate back", the quote by Gyula Pauer gains a new readability, because manipulation is highly valued in current events. In his second manifesto (1972), Pauer expanded the discourse originally immanent to art. Curator Patrick Urwyler is now once again allowing the complexity and subtlety of manipulation to be negotiated in isolation in the exhibition space through the artistic positions of Mark Fridvalszki, Gábor Koós, Lőrinc Borsos, and Eszter Szabó. The four artistic positions deal with manipulative strategies and refer to different contexts in order to approach the complex subject matter with artistic means.
