Those who know the collection well will know that there are many exciting exhibitions to be staged from the store of the Visual Library. Ákos Vörösváry gave us a "free hand" to select and shape the concept of the exhibition and according to him in thirty years (30+2) this is the first exhibition where he did not select and/or direct the works. We thank him for the opportunity, the trust and the collaboration.
PRELUDE:
Etudes. (Red-White-Green, Black-Gold, Pink, Passe-p Art, The Immortal Kitsch)
12 February - 12 March 2000.
See VESZPRÉM TV
We like statistics, numbers, let's start like this:
There are 40 ARTISTS, 80 WORKS in the exhibition, I counted them today (I could say that we planned it exactly like this, calculated in advance, to the with nanometre accuracy. Sounds good, just not true. I should have bought a lottery ticket, which of course I forgot.)
The list goes from SÁNDOR ALTORJAI to ZUZU-VETŐ.
LAJOS GULÁCSY was born in 1882, the youngest artist in the exhibition
LÁSZLÓ PÁTYERKÓ in 1980=100 years (precisely 98!, but...)
but what is very important here is the 60 years of collecting by ÁKOS VÖRÖSVÁRY.
LONG LIVE ART! LONG LIVE THE COLLECTORS!
"can we be sure of the current or future value of the works purchased (acquired)?
Well, the answer is clearly NO! We are not sure. What we are sure of is our belief in collecting and in building brave collections."
Gábor Pados, IROKÉZ COLLECTION, In praise of Art Collecting, the 15th Anniversary of the Visual Library
Where the world is going, where the...
"Since Ruskin (1819-1900) saw that the world was going in the wrong direction, the poor were getting poorer, the rich were getting richer, the share of the poor is growing, the share of the rich is shrinking, the mercantilist view, which was only after material gain, and the poverty and boredom of life that followed in its wake, were destroying what was most important to man: art, man's poetic activity."
Zoltán Gyenge John Ruskin's reality ÉS/FEUILLETON - Volume LXVI, Number 30, 29 July 2022.
LONG LIVE ART! LONG LIVE POETIC ACTIVITY! LONG LIVE THE ARTISTS, ART HISTORIANS, ART WRITERS, ALL THOSE WHO ARE ACTIVELY INVOLVED IN THE ARTS
and above all, long live the understanding, attentive PUBLIC!
Welcome speech by László Hegyeshalmi
Productive Coexistence
"Imagine, Ákos Vörösváry - from now on: Ákos - has been organising exhibitions since 1975, for 47 years; since 1991 under the aegis of the First Hungarian Visual Library.
Today we would say brand, but aegis is more appropriate for the Visual Library. The term is of Greek origin, referring to the shield of Zeus and Pallas Athenaeus, or more precisely the goatskin coating of the wooden shield, and derives from the word for goat - aigos. Thinking of a collection, I could easily imagine such a shield in it.
If my guess is right, Ákos must be around a hundred exhibitions. And just imagine that this is the first one that he has not selected and directed from the collection of the Visual Library. Although he has said many times that it would be nice if other 'outside' curators could use this huge collection as a starting point for their work.
After all, he didn't have to wait another half century, and his wish came true.
What you see here is a selection by László Hegyeshalmi and Gábor Áfrány, reflecting their perspectives. If you take the selected artists and the works in order, you might get the feeling that you are in the halls of a modern Hungarian art museum.
But this is only a semblance, "like - as Kafka wrote - tree trunks in the snow. Seemingly they fit smoothly and with a little push you could push them away. No, you can't, they're firmly attached to the ground." This ground here is the visual arts collection; the semblance is that the works it contains, the works that can be "extracted" from it, conform to the rules of some formulable system, such as the forces of the artistic canon or the hierarchy of values established by art history. Please believe me: this is not the case.
Because Ákos is a lucky man: free and sovereign in his decisions - at least since we have known each other for, um, 40 years. Now I ask you: has it always been like this?
The fact is that he cannot be persuaded when it comes to art and artworks.
You can try it, I tried it once, it was a polite uneasiness. If there is no connection - both emotional and to a certain extent conscious contact due to the many viewings of the works of art-, a common wavelength between him and the work in front of him - all arguments, analyses and references are futile: it is a waste of time.
Thus, the inclusion of works in the collection does not take into account any "external" aspect or trend; and it is only a form of "productive coexistence" if at certain points this personal value judgement and public agreement overlap.
An experienced colleague of mine used to say about the production - to dismiss the so-and-so exhibitionist with a bit of self-criticism and a bit of gentleness: "It's exciting, but unfortunately, I can't connect with it..." Well, yes, you open your arms: there's nothing you can do.
The selection in Veszprém is a good opportunity to distinguish between the mentioned "gallery" and "museum" collections, and to emphasize the different motivations of the composition, since - apart from a few exceptions that reinforce the rule - uses an institutional and curatorial filter, or rather a net, that reveals a kind of "museum immersion" of the collection here and now.
This is a completely different, new aspect missing from the previous exhibition practice of the Visual Library, because in addition to the pieces that are by common consent considered "museum pieces" this exhibition does not include a wide variety of artefacts that ignore the professional hierarchy of values, relativising them and otherwise would be absent from the territory of "high art", such as, as already mentioned, a shield covered in goatskin.
Well, consider that you can see an unusual exhibition from a visual library perspective, a kind of elite selection. And on this occasion for a few months that these works will be on display together collectors are likely to feel a strong desire."
Opening speech by Gábor Andrási
