A young couple, Péter Kovács and Márta Kovalovszky, came straight out of university to work in a little-known provincial museum and then proceeded to turn it into the most important collection of contemporary Hungarian art. Their taste and expertise in their selection of works have been truly remarkable; any artist presented by them has invariably gone on to achieve a place in the history of Hungarian art. To have an exhibition in Székesfehérvár has come to mean
an honour-and a guarantee of status. The vernissages were important social events, where the like-minded had the opportunity to gather. Kovalovszky and Kovács took equal pains over their selection of speakers; these opening addresses, if still available, have been included in the present volume. To open a vernissage in Székesfehérvár, or to be invited to assist in organizing one, was also looked on as an honour.
The poets and writers who have opened exhibitions there have included such major figures in Hungary’s literary life as Ágnes Nemes Nagy, Miklós Szentkuthy, Géza Féja, László Nagy, Lajos Kassák and-more than once-János Pilinszky.
On one extraordinary occasion, the opening of Erzsébet Schaár’s exhibition "Street", Pilinszky recited one
of his poems in front of each of the sculptures. Out of this came their 1975 joint book Tér és kapcsolat (Space and Connection). "All that has passed is immortal," Pilinszky had said in front of one of the works. The exhibitions of that time were, indeed, characterized by that kind of sublimity. As the artists began to be chosen from the younger generations, so too was there a change of generation among the writers invited to appraise their art: they included Péter Nádas, Péter Esterházy, László Krasznahorkai and the poet Endre Kukorelly.
Accompanying them was a new and sympathetic generation of critics, most notably Katalin Néray, Júlia Szabó, László Beke and Ernoý Marosi. The museum also hosted programmes which included performances by representatives of the new music, readings by writers, lecture series by art historians, cinema screenings and happenings. The photographs that here document these thirty years present not just the passing of time through changing fashions and changing hair-styles, but also the art scene in the making.
Works and Attitudes 1990–1996
What should immediately become clear from the list is that twentieth-century Hungarian art cannot be classified in periods in keeping with European stylistic categories, nor in fact in any other, unitary, set of categories. The organizers strove for openness. They have managed to steer clear of the negative avant-garde approach,
which tends to classify the past selectively;
equally they have avoided any other form of partiality. They have concentrated solely on artistic quality.
The comprehensive exhibitions covering entire periods or artists’ groups were complemented by individual shows featuring major pre-war painters who did not fit into any school or category. Csontváry was followed by the painter Lajos Gulácsy and by a show of the tapestries of Noémi Ferenczy. István Nagy’s one-man show was a
complement to the Great Plains School exhibition, just as István Farkas’s complemented that devoted
to the Gresham Circle, or Lajos Vajda’s did the European School’s. These artists were individually more important than the groups to which they
belonged, or which claimed them as distinguished members (as happened in Vajda’s case who was posthumously declared a member of the European School.) A similar occasion was the epochal
exhibition of László Moholy-Nagy (1969), around whose pivotal figure the organizers also presented a number of other Hungarian artists, painters and architects of Modernism.
A project to present contemporary art ran parallel with the historical series. Artists barely tolerated by the political commissars of culture and
unable to exhibit in Budapest were shown in Székesfehérvár. The first of these was the painter and graphic artist Béla Kondor, shown as far back as 1964; his was followed by exhibitions centred on some members of the older generation. The Székesfehérvár exhibitions were intended to lessen the humiliations they had been subjected to. The museum demonstrated the real values of contemporary art to members of the art world and to the public-in vivid contrast with the set of values officially manipulated. The exhibitions of the sculptor Tibor Vilt (1965), the painter Dezsoý Korniss (1965), the sculptor Erzsébet Schaár (1966) and the painter Lili Ország, settled old debts. Vilt, for example, had not had-had not been allowed-a one-man show for the previous thirty years. While on the subject of settling old debts, let me also mention the memorial exhibitions, such as that of Dezsoý Bokros Birman (1968), and of Lajos Kassák (1968), held immediately after the death of this important poet and painter, who had been relegated to obscurity for decades.
The introduction of contemporary art, in the proper sense, began a little later than the curators would have wished. In reaction to the events of 1968 in Czechoslovakia, the previous slight thaw in Hungarian culture froze up. Modern movements could not, at first, be presented at all, and later could only be smuggled into exhibitions. This was the intention behind the "Contemporary Art in Private Collections" (1975) and "Serial Works" (1976) exhibitions. Both events were of enormous significance. These were the first occasions when the public could view, side by side within a single exhibition, Hungarian and foreign representatives of what was then contemporary art, mostly works by the new abstract geometric school. Another first was the demonstration of the fact that, despite all the disadvantages of isolation and censorship, Hungarian art was an organic part of everything that was then taking place in the wider world. The painter Dóra Maurer had a major role in the organization of
both these events; in 1976, she had a joint ex-
hibition with her husband Tibor Gáyor. It was with this that a presentation of the middle generation
of contemporary artists-possibly the most interesting series-began, with a one-man show each year.
Although Kovalovszky and Kovács probably have many stories to tell about all those who would have liked to have been included in this series, they have maintained a discreet silence. All I can confirm here is that there was always reverence mixed with pride in an artist’s voice when saying "Márta and Péter approached me about an exhibition in their museum." Among contemporary major artists who exhibited there were István Haraszty and Tamás Hencze (1977), Ilona Keserü (1978), Pál Deim (1979), followed by the Pécs Workshop (1980); István Nádler’s turn came in 1981, to be followed by Károly Halász (1982), Sándor Pinczehelyi (1983), András Mengyán (1984), György Jovánovics (1985), Tibor Hajas (1987-a memorial exhibition), András Baranyai (1989-an exhibition that was delayed on account of the artist’s proverbial hesitancy).
[...]
Although the works shown at the 1986 exhibition had been, with one or two exceptions, created in the 1980s, the attitude and the change in thinking behind them can be traced back to the mid-1970s. Most of those showing belonged to two
important groups, the Vajda Lajos Studio in Szentendre and the INDIGO group (INterDIszciplináris GOndolkozás, i.e. "interdisciplinary thinking"), who were students of the painter, writer and film director Miklós Erdély.
The novelty of the Vajda Lajos Studio was to
elevate Hungarian counter-culture to the status of high art. Its members drew important stimuli
from Dadaism, and from rock and pop music, in which they actively engaged; they also drew inspiration from the sub-culture milieu in which they lived, and which they deliberately tried to shape. The art and esoteric character of elite culture-which in this case also included the tradition of classical Modernism-was in sharp contrast with their profane, banal and deliberately "non-beautiful" works reflecting everyday events and phenomena, works which raised banality, trash and kitsch to the status of art. Humour (and specifically
black humour) was an important component, along with powerful social and cultural criticism, linguistic frolics and an open depiction of sexuality-all combined with a bizarre transcendence. The startling philosophical texts, also characteristic, might equally have been inspired by Schopenhauer or the philosopher guru (and excellent novelist) Béla Hamvas, or even by The Life and Views of Zacharias Lichter by the Romanian writer Matei Calinescu.
Taking a different path and under different influences, members of the INDIGO group, Erdély’s former pupils (Böröcz, Révész, Roskó, Sugár), reached essentially similar artistic conclusions. Erdély’s thinking was greatly influenced by his layman’s understanding of science and by the phi-losophy of Wittgenstein. Rather than attributing aesthetic values to art, Erdély attributed a cognitive function to it, which-naturally-should differ from the forms of scientific reasoning. Visual and linguistic absurdity are part and parcel of this art, as are irony and a strong critical attitude towards all aspects of society; so too are the discovery and presentation of the ambivalences inherent in every assertion. In contrast with the self-taught instinctiveness of the artists in the Vajda Studio, the
INDIGO artists were artfully cerebral and skilled
in philosophical and scientific paradoxes, even if their way of expressing this may have sometimes seemed naive or even clumsy.
[...]
The historical series, started in 1965, eventually reached the present in 1996; in other words, it caught up with the contemporary series. The process that the two series jointly covered spanned from around 1900 to around 2000; the series effectively merged in the exhibition "Works and Attitudes 1990–1996." Both the opening and the closing exhibition provided a cross-section of modern Hungarian art through a historical occasion. The first presented the golden age when bourgeois society emerged through paintings and sculptures, and through a significant collection of arts and crafts. The last exhibition reflected on the period between 1990 and 1996, the years that followed the changes, revealing the conduct, dilemmas and choices of artists once again living in the security of civil rights and working in a rapidly changing society.
In Western Europe, any survey of the century’s art within a particular country would require entirely different demarcations; for example, from post-Impressionism to post-modernism, or from Art Nouveau to deconstructivism, etc. Here in Hungary, even in the first half of the century, the divisions were defined less by art movements and more by art groups. As to the postwar picture, here history strongly intervened: the exhibitions "The Fifties", "The Years of Dénouement Around 1960", and even "We ‘Eastern French’", which presented the art of the 1980s, testify to that. It was within this development, essentially marked by historical changes, that the organizers presented the art groups and works that they viewed as progressive -with the exception of the Years of Social Realism (1949–1957), in which they contrasted the pseudo-art of the Stalinist Rákosi regime with that of the suppressed and marginalized modern movements.
This incorporates the view that art has a goal and a direction, and the value system which guarantees the attainment of that goal provides the
basis for selection. Accordingly, the values of universal art, both in content and form, provide the norm that Hungarian art should follow, and the best Hungarian critics of twentieth-century art have used this as their yardstick.
Consequently, these thirty years of exhibitions at Székesfehérvár and the canon they outlined were the first summary of a knowledge based
on the traditional concept. The exhibitions courageously used the judgement of our day to add to the canon, and their truly great achievement is that the verdicts have stood the test of time. Art criticism in the past few years has refined the picture with several new factual discoveries, but any substantial change in the paradigm is in the realm
of speculation rather than in that of convincing analysis.
[...]
To present all this, the two curators had to overcome a great many obstacles, exercizing supreme diplomatic skills. Initially the museum’s own collection was very modest. In conjunction with the exhibitions, however, the collections grew apace, with the result that the Székesfehérvár museum’s modern collection is by far the best in the country-not surprisingly since a clear and cohesive concept is behind it. Naturally, the historical material could only be arranged with the help of loans, and leading museums and private collectors are reluctant to lend major works. However, the curators made discoveries in the store-rooms, and those discoveries have proved enduring. They were the first to call attention to the painting Golden Age by János Vaszary (1867–1939), which has since then been regarded as one of the emblematic pieces of Hungarian Art Nouveau, recurring again and again in exhibitions, essays and art books. It was in Székesfehérvár that we were first able to see József Jakovits’s graphical series Drawings, with allusions to the 1956 Revolution (in 1969!); it was also here that the works of artists in exile were shown-further irritating the commissars of cultural politics.
Organizing exhibition series in Székesfehérvár required scholarship, good eyes and fine taste. More risky, but just as important was a willingness to stand up to the powers that be as well as clear judgment and responsibility; the fact that the two of them accepted all the above as a credo was itself made clear in the 1993 exhibition concluding the period.
Ildikó Nagy
is a critic specializing in
twentieth-century Hungarian art.
