Artist showcases anti-authoritarian art in 228 memorial museum

Taipei, Dec. 7 (CNA) The National 228 Memorial Museum on Saturday opened an art show featuring the works of a Hungarian-American painter whose creative themes usually revolve around human rights activism.

The "Spectre of Freedom: Art of Resistance" exhibition features the selected works of Steven Balogh and will run from Dec. 7 until March 23.

Due to the parallels his works have with Taiwan's human rights history, Saturday's opening of Balogh's show was attended by Deputy Interior Minister Tung Chien-hung (董建宏) and former Transitional Justice Commission Chairwoman Yang Tsui (楊翠).

While the artist himself could not make it to Taiwan to personally attend the exhibition's opening due to an injury, he gave thanks to the 228 Memorial Foundation in a pre-recorded video for organizing his show and also talked about the inspiration behind his works.

Balogh said Taiwan shared a lot with his native Hungary in that its peoples have always strived for national independence and freedom.

They also have their own political autonomy and independent economy and have sought the freedoms of speech and the press and the right to assembly.

The artist is expected to visit Taiwan in February 2025 and create an installation artwork to memorialize the 228 Incident, in which thousands of people protesting the authoritarian KMT regime in 1947 were killed or arrested.

Balogh was born in 1954 in Hungary when the country was still under the shadow of the Soviet Union, and his first foray into art came when he served in his country's Air Force at the age of 20.

According to Taiwanese American Arts Council CEO Luchia Meihua Lee-Howell (李美華), Balogh was inspired to pursue art after witnessing a gruesome injury suffered by a peer in the Air Force.

He trained under various mentors to create artworks that criticized the Hungarian Communist Party, which put him on the radar of Hungary's authoritarian government.

That led him to seek asylum in a refugee camp in Austria in 1986 and become stateless, Lee-Howell said.

Balogh has been living in New York since he was granted refugee status by the United States, she said.

Photos of his performance art back in 1979 in Hungary and works from when he started living in New York will be exhibited at the show in Taiwan, Lee said.

Museum curator Lan Shih-po (藍士博) said one of Balogh's works in Taiwan is a painting of a Hungarian college student who committed self-immolation, which mirrors the history of Taiwan independence activist Nylon Cheng (鄭南榕), who also self-immolated in the name of freedom and free speech.

Lan said he hoped that art could harmonize with the sadness of history and create a human rights dialogue between Taiwan and the rest of the world.