Received Sylff fellowship in 2025
Academic supervisor: Dr. György Fábri
Current affiliation: Eötvös Loránd University; Central European Research Institute for Art History
Kristóf Nagy submitted his PhD dissertation, Waging Art: Hungary’s Academy of Arts and the New Culture Wars in Times of Hegemonic Shifts, at Central European University in 2024. Since 2022, he has been a research fellow at the Central European Research Institute for Art History and an assistant professor at Eötvös Loránd University. His research focuses on the art of post-socialist transitions, far-right cultural production, and the intersection of art and labor. He has served as a visiting fellow at several institutions, such as the University of Vienna, the Czech Academy of Sciences, the University of Amsterdam, and the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
He has published critical studies on the Soros Foundation’s art philanthropy and contemporary far-right culture. In 2019, he co-curated the exhibition Left Turn, Right Turn – Artistic and Political Radicalism under Late Socialism at Budapest’s Blinken OSA Archives. In 2024, he co-edited "Kiállítások és kritikák. Képzőművészeti diskurzusok az 1980-as években" [Exhibitions and criticism. Artistic discourses in the 1980s], a curated anthology of exhibition reviews from 1980s Hungary. He is also an editor for Fordulat, a social theory journal, and an active member of the Helyzet Working Group for Public Sociology.
Academic Achievements, Social Engagement Initiatives
Books
o Kiállítások és kritikák. Képzőművészeti diskurzusok az 1980-as években [Exhibitions and reviews. Artistic discourses in the 1980s] (with Júliusz Huth). Central European Research Insitute for Art History – Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, 2025.
Journal articles (selection)
o Hegemony in Action: Crafting New Common Sense at Orbán's Hungarian Academy of Arts (2011-2023). in: Partecipazione e Conflitto, 2024, Vol. 17. No. 2. 577-592.
o Remaking civil society under authoritarian capitalism. The case of the Orbán regime’s Hungarian Academy of Arts. in: Intersections. East European Journal of Society and Politics, 2024, Vol. 9. No. 4. pp. 80-100.
o Culture Wars as Property Struggles: The Hungarian Academy of Arts in Post-1989 Hungary. in: Hungarian Studies Review, 2023, Vol. 50. No. 1-2. pp. 49-69.
o Left Turn – Right Turn. Artistic and Political Radicalism of Late Socialism in Hungary. The Orfeo and the Inconnu Groups. in: Contradictions. A Journal for Critical Thought, 2021, Vol. 5., No. 2. pp. 57–85. (with Márton Szarvas)
o Morals of Precarity: Young Cultural Workers’ Strategies in Post-2010 Hungary. in: Comparativ, 2021, Vol. 31., No. 2. pp. 217–230. (with Márton Szarvas)
o Moral und Prekarität. Strategien junger KulturarbeiterInnen im Post 2010 Ungarn. in: Kurswechsel, 2020, No. 2. pp. 22-34. (with Márton Szarvas)
o Rabinec Studio: The Commodification of Art in Late Socialist Hungary. in: Octavian Esanu (ed.) Contemporary Art and Capitalist Modernization. A Transregional Perspective, 2020, pp. 139-152.
o From Fringe Interest to Hegemony: The Emergence of the Soros Network in Eastern Europe. in: Anu Allas – Beáta Hock (eds.) Eastern Europe Globalizing East European Art Histories: Past and Present, Routledge, London, 2018, pp. 53-63.
o Angela Davis Goes East? White Skin and Black Masks in the Art of Socialist Hungary. in: World Literature Studies, 2016, Vol. 8. No. 4., 2016, pp. 77-94.
https://kemki.academia.edu/KristófNagy
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kristof-Nagy-4
