The case of a rejected diploma work Ildikó várnagy, Eve’S Flight from Paradise

Abstract

In the 1960s, students attending the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts – especially female students of sculpture — were socialised in a strange way. This ‘strangeness’ was generated by the latent tension between contradictory values, conflicting motivations and interests — and women were exposed to these dualities a great deal more than men. Being students of sculpture only amplified the effect on them, and overshadowed it with negative stereotypes. The case study sheds light on the latent motives of the rejection of a diploma work made by a female art student, Ildikó Várnagy in socialist Hungary. It examines the case, in the frame of art education and sculpture in the Sixties, as well as gender bias at the Art Academy in Hungary, and also outlines the effects of this incident on her later carrier as an artist.