 |
?Last year we approved a new strategy for exhibitions at the Hungarian National Gallery and we have made a five-year plan,? said Csák, who has headed the museum since last year.
Among the exhibitions planned are retrospective shows of Károly Ferenczy and Gyula Derkovits, which need several years of preparations. A drop in state financing has also made it necessary to introduce a change in strategy and more thorough planning.
?Large companies usually decide about their funding portfolio once a year, which means we must be able to submit a list of exhibitions that we request support for two or three years in advance,? Csák said.
International relations will receive more emphasis. An exhibition held in London last year was the first step in this direction. The National Gallery appeared independently next to an international show by the Museum of Fine Arts.
?We must develop our international relations in a way that will draw attention to Hungarian art, and at the same time, the basis for this must be created in Hungary,? Csák said describing future tasks.
International curators have taken notice of the current exhibitions of Munkácsy and Károly Markó and the National Gallery has made many efforts to promote these shows which were prepared at high costs. In line with Csák?s programme, long-term international management efforts will result in increasingly serious museums and curators helping Hungarian art to be put in in international circulation.
Two cooperation programmes have been prepared so far. The early 20th century Hungarian painting collection of the National Gallery has been invited to the Shanghai Art Museum, as a result of which Chinese audiences will get to know 25 Hungarian artists. The show will include many Munkácsy paintings, as well as ones by Rippl-Rónai and Károly Ferenczy, and works by other artists up to the late 1920s.
?I thought, once this collection is in East Asia, it would be worth organising an additional showing and so I contacted the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Seoul. The collection, plus works by 25-30 contemporary artists from the National Gallery, will therefore travel from Shanghai to Seoul in the summer of 2013. As a result, the National Gallery will present works in two very important cultural centres,? Csák said.
In exchange for the Hungarian show, the Shanghai museum will send a collection to be shown in Budapest in February 2013, and a representative contemporary art show plus classic Korean art objects will arrive in Budapest from Seoul in early 2014.
?We expect this large-scale East Asian programme to attract the attention of further renowned international institutions to Hungarian fine art. We have similar plans in Vienna. We would like to make an exhibition on the occasion of the Munkácsy anniversary in a museum in the Austrian capital in 2014. Then in 2014 or 2015 we would like to present a collection of works in New York,? Csák said.
Additionally, a cooperation programme is currently under preparation with the Tate Gallery in London, involving museum education and the training of experts.
An important aim of the National Gallery is to carry out these international projects without state financing.
?It seems to be feasible in the case of the shows in Asia. Chinese and Korean companies are serious about further improving the Hungarian economy and Shanghai and Seoul are important cities for Hungarian companies. As a result, we expect that the active participation of these market participants will be sufficient to cover the costs,? he added.
At the same time, Csák said the gallery also would like to organise large shows in Hungary with little or no state support, following Western European examples. Some success has already been achieved in implementing this model. Less than 10 percent of the cost of the Ferenczy exhibition to open in late November was covered by state funding, and no state funding was used for the Munkácsy show on display until August 31.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
