Books - Highlights
Kovasznai monograph, 3 editions: 2010, 2016, 2022 (Author)
Comprehensive monograph exploring the oeuvre and influence of Hungarian filmmaker and painter Gyorgy Kovasznai with prefaces by Professor Sarah Wilson (The Courtauld Institute of Art) and Paul Wells (Loughborough University). The second edition of the monograph was published by the Kovasznai Research Centre in March 2016 to accompany the first ever UK exhibition of Kovasznai, held at the Somerset House in London.
332 pages plus DVD's: - Short Films, 1963-1982 - Feature length film Bubble Bath: A Musical Special-Effects Film to the Rhythm of a Heartbeat - 2010 documentary by artist and director Igor Lazin - CD ROM with all digital reproductions from the book.
"Brigitta Ivanyi-Bitter’s book is a must for anyone interested in Post Modern Art and Animation. The 332 page book is packed full of beautiful full color reproductions of Kovasznai’s paintings and film stills as well as photographs tracing his life from childhood to pictures taken of friends who gathered at the Feszek Artists’ Club for the Kovasznai banquet and commemorative evening in 1992. The English translation is excellent and makes for a very smooth read. The foreword written by Lorand Hegyi, one of Europe’s foremost curators and art historians, sets the stage for Brigitta’s analysis of the artist’s life and work." - Nancy Denney-Phelps
"Brigitta Iványi-Bitter’s work on György Kovásznai is another necessary step in the recovery of absent but significant artists in the animation and broader arts field. Passionate and hugely invested, the discussion uses, reproduces and interrogates important elements of Kovásznai’s œuvre, analysing his largely un-exhibited paintings, unpublished essays and creative works, and his little seen animated films. The Animation community owes her and her research colleagues a huge debt of gratitude in that reassessing and drawing attention to Kovásznai’s work also opens a window on so many other contexts – pre- and post-Stalinist arts culture in Hungary; animation and its currencies across Europe from the 1950s onwards; the role and function of the animator-artist in the arts and society in general; the vital investment of scholars and practitioners as researchers and historians in preserving and conserving ‘lost worlds'" - Paul Wells
"‘It’s cool to wait’ is the title of a film by György Kovásznai made in 1969. We have waited too long, however, to discover this painter, filmmaker and theoretician. Now, thanks to Brigitta Iványi-Bitter ́s wide-ranging and focused research, Kovásznai takes his place within the widening circles of his European and indeed American contemporaries. Illuminating comparisons and the reproduction of Kovásznai’s own writings, drawings and related documents add to the richness of this monograph." - Sarah Wilson
Link to the book
The Freedom of Experimentation, 2021
Edited by: Brigitta Iványi-Bitter PhD, curator of the exhibition
The exhibition was accompanied by a catalogue of 12 essays, providing a thorough overview of Inforg Studio and the Hungarian avant-garde filmmakers’ cultural context of the 2000s. Essays by Hungarian and American film theorists, academics and film critics explain why Inforg Studio’s palette is the most colourful of the era and why it is worth remembering as a 21st century heir of the Hungarian avant-garde filmmaking tradition.
Link to the book