This text appears in a new riso-printed catalog produced on occasion of Endre Tót : Gladness and Rain.

What led you to publishing? How did you begin printing and publishing your books and multiples?

I learned about printing presses and print opportunities because I was teaching at an industry vocational school and was in touch with a printing house. During this time large printing houses were strictly supervised, so there wasn’t much I could do with these, but I did discover smaller print shops that I could use. These were simple offset presses run by one or two pressmen, and at the time offset machines were used for everything—this was before photocopying. I gained access to these small print shops, and they printed my artists’ books at the beginning of the 70s. Needless to say, this had its risks, as we were living amidst such censorship that nothing other than a business card could be published without permission. Eventually I succeeded in making a deal with these press workers, who printed smaller jobs for me at night, in secret, in exchange for a few bottles of red wine. Occasionally, we could also make larger-scale projects, which was how My Unpainted Canvases was made, as well as a couple of other similar books in the early 1970s.

Why did you focus on making printed works?

Printed works were so important because I could integrate them very quickly into the international avant-garde scene of the time. In early 1971, my first so-called illegal, or “samizdat,” piece was a sentence printed on a piece of cardboard, which read: “I am glad that I could have this sentence printed.” It questioned the notion of censorship. Though I never expected it to, this piece became a minor sensation in the West. This early conceptual work received positive feedback.

Afterwards, I printed a number of flyers, smaller unique pieces, in addition to the two or three artists’ books. None of these offset prints ever reached 500 copies, but I was mailing them to every corner of the globe. I still regard these offset pieces as almost completely original. Many copies were acquired by important museums and libraries across Western Europe—the Pompidou Centre’s Kandinsky Library is perhaps the most important to me.

How did these books come to the attention of those museums? Did you exhibit these books at the time?

In Paris, there was an exhibition—the largest to date— of artists’ books at the Pompidou. This was when he artists’ book as a new medium practically made its debut. I had three artists’ books presented there. One of them was Night Visit to the National Gallery, which would later become my most well-known work. I made it in 1974 and it was published in England by the legendary avant-garde publisher Beau Geste Press.

In the 70s, two or three artists’ books were produced in Hungary, but most of my artists’ books were published in the West while I was still living in Budapest.

Which other publishers did you collaborate with? How did the books relate to your mail art practice?

Besides the aforementioned Beau Geste Press, there was the Yellow Now in Liége, Belgium, Howeg in Zurich, and Galerie Ecart in Geneva, which was especially important to me. This gallery had a small publishing house that issued avant-garde pieces of the time, one after another. Galerie Ecart was headed by John Armleder, who would become world famous later on, and with whom I was in regular correspondence in those years. We had exchanged more than 100 letters, and he published these as a book in Geneva. It was an honest documentation of a mail art correspondence.

It would be an exaggeration to say that I discovered the artists’ book in Hungary. Rather, I would say it was just in the air—so much so that the path to artists’ books seemed very natural to me. As I’ve mentioned, my books made in Hungary were produced in small print shops that were free from serious supervision, so the means of production were available to me.

Was it difficult to receive international mail in Hungary at that time?

I imagine that I received 6–8 letters and parcels from the West on a daily basis, and to my knowledge, I received everything and never noticed any signs of tampering. The postal service was impeccable, I owe them a lot. It was through the post that I could become integrated into the latest avant-garde endeavours in the 70s. I had several exhibitions in the West, even in the USA, and surprisingly, in Poland, thanks to the post. Poland was much freer in the 70s than we were in Hungary. The significance of the post to me was that it made me a completely free person; I could communicate with the entire world. With the help of the post, I could leap over the Iron Curtain.

In 1971 I took part in the Biennale de Paris, a life-changing exhibition, which was exceptionally important to me because it was the first time that they launched a separate section within the normal framework of the biennale, named Envoi (Mail section). This was the first serious survey of mail art, in Paris in ’71. At the time I was told that the chief curator of the show, Jean-Marc Poinsot, had said that a “miracle had arrived from the East,” referring to my Zero works. After Paris, I became friendly with many of the artists who showed there, such as Ben Vautier, Christian Boltanski, Ray Johnson, George Maciunas, etc. Things snowballed from there.

In 1975, I was unexpectedly invited by the Israel Museum in Jerusalem to do a solo exhibition. Naturally, I was nervous about how to realize it. We had no diplomatic relations with Israel back then, so I really had to think hard about how to solve this problem. The director’s concept consisted of exhibiting the latest conceptual works along with such acclaimed artists as Sol LeWitt, Christian Boltanski, who later would become very famous, Joseph Kosuth and Douglas Huebler. I solved the problem by travelling to Belgrade with a suitcase packed full. I was already going there for an expanded media exhibition and so I mailed this suitcase of material from there, because by then I had lost confidence in the Hungarian post. I sent everything to Jerusalem packed in 3–4 registered letters. Thank God everything arrived on time. It was exhibited there with a Giacometti show, which was on the ground floor while I occupied the first floor. The exhibition was covered by the Presse in Paris, by the German Heute Kunst, and Flash Art as well.

How did life in Germany change what you were making?

Living in the West, of course, I had better opportunities to make higher quality, larger format artists’ books, although once I arrived there in the early 1980s, I barely made any. The reason being that the heyday of this medium was in the 70s, especially the early years.

Later I was no longer excited by this genre, and I made only two or three booklets in Germany. Perhaps these were important because I wouldn’t say they were artists’ books par excellence, but they had a very powerful artists’ book character. They mostly featured documentations of my formerly sent pieces of mail art.

What did your peers and neighbors in Hungary think of your activity?

That kind of correspondence must have been rare there at that time. When I was in Budapest, I lived in such isolation that people whispered behind my back that I was no longer living there, they said that I had defected. They were totally unaware that I was still living in Budapest. My greatest pain was walking around the streets of Budapest with the secret of the intense relationship I was maintaining with the Western world.

Interview conducted by Kata Balázs & Árpád Tóth Translated by Dániel Sipos. Edited by Kata Balázs and Dániel Kozma. Special thanks to Zsófia Aczél.

Transcript and translation of a recording originally presented at Endre Tót: Printed Matter 1971–1981, ISBN Books+Gallery, Budapest, 2020 (exhibition realized in collaboration with acb Gallery and Neon Gallery, Budapest).