"There's a serious challenge for anybody who wants to put contemporary Hungarian art on the international scene," said Barnabás Bencsik, the director of Budapest's Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art.
Bencsik said part of the problem is the "incredibly complicated...hierarchically layered structure" of the international contemporary art scene. Hungarian artists who want their works to be known abroad have to think very carefully about who they want to reach and at what level of the hierarchy they want to establish connections.
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| The Balassi Institute |
The first step Hungary's contemporary art scene must take is to end its isolation, Bencsik said. Though he conceded that there are historical reasons for this isolation - "at the end of the 80s, Hungarian artists had absolutely no international connections" - this bad inheritance must be overcome.
Rita Halasi, the director of the Ponton Gallery and an expert on contemporary design, said national identity is not a part of Hungary's design culture, as it is in many other European countries. While Dutch or British design is practically a brand, the only institution working to create the same for Hungary is the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design (MOME).
"Contemporary Hungarian art is very underrepresented at the international level, and that's our shared responsibility," said Attila Pőcze, director of the Vintage Gallery. Even the catalogues and albums of contemporary Hungarian artists' works that are published rarely find their way outside of the country, so foreign curators have nothing to work with.
Géza Boros, head of department at the Ministry of Education and Culture pointed out that the way of thinking on Hungary's contemporary art scene failed to change following Hungary's transformation into a market economy: artists continued to rely on the state for support. He raised the question whether state support would be necessary to put Hungarian art on the international scene "in this decentralised world, where the role of private galleries has so appreciated."
ACB Gallery director János Szoboszlai answered that the state could help to "give impetus" to private Hungarian galleries' presence abroad. But the artist Tamás Jovánovics stressed the importance of independence and noted that opportunities are out there. He told about a meeting with a 21-year-old Finnish artist, who had won a competition. The Finn told Jovánovics that the contest was just one of 58 international competitions this year alone.
The Balassi Institute is showing the works of Zsolt Bedőcs, Ágnes Dóra Dénes, János Jakucs, Zsuzsa Kalas, Adél Kiss, Katalin Könyv, Hajnal Miklós, Ádám Rolik, Adrienn Veres and Gábor Márton Wagner at the exhibition.
