The centre was opened at a cost of almost 600 million forints in a classicist building in the city centre. The investment was supported with funding from the New Széchenyi Plan and is the result of cooperation between the Complex Culture Research Foundation, which manages Kepes?s work, and the city of Eger.
State secretary of the Ministry of National Resources János Halász said at the opening that, in spite of spending a significant part of his life in America, Kepes said he was ?helplessly Hungarian?.
?His aim was to be modern and create something enduring not only in art but also in science, in order to make a universal contribution to the development of culture,? he added.
The artist?s daughter, July Kepes, said a dream had come true with the construction of the centre and she conveyed the regards of the head of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where her father worked for years. May this new centre become a catalyst for cooperation between scientists and artists, she added.
The centre will house paintings, photographs, light statues and photograms, grouped chronologically. The core of the exhibition will be made up of work by Kepes and his contemporaries. A museum of light art featuring the work of Hungarian and foreign artists will occupy the top floor of the three-storey building.
President of the Foundation for a Complex Cultural Research board István Kaczári said the new centre would present every field in which art and technology meet, including lasers, robots, painting and photography.
One of the objectives of establishing the centre was to provide an appropriate venue to show these works, he said. The decision not to call the centre a ?museum? was intentional as its main purpose will be to promote knowledge and provide education and training, he added.
Kepes, who was born near Eger, bequeathed about 200 art works to the city in 1991.
Kepes taught at the New Bauhaus in Chicago and established the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
