“I would like to pursue absolutely new research fields”
Art historian Katalin Keserü on education, research and exhibitions
MúzeumCafé 44.
Katalin Keserü has taught several generations of art historians. In addition, her curiosity has led her to various fields of art history including the 19th century, Hungarian Art Nouveau and contemporary art. Perhaps the same curiosity made her apply for the directorship of the Budapest Kunsthalle and later the Ernst Museum.
– What memories have you of your childhood in Pécs?
My parents were professionals. The cultural consciousness of Pécs is rather strong. The town has a significant past in relation to the arts, not to mention the ubiquitous traces of the Zsolnay factory. Just think of the artistic life in the 20s, when Vasarely and the artists who later became prominent figures of the Bauhaus and Modernism started off from.
– You wrote your doctoral thesis on Hungarian art at the turn of the century – Rippl-Rónai and the Gödöllő artists’ colony. Why did you choose those themes?
Professor Vayer was sorry that I wrote my degree thesis on Gödöllő, more precisely on Aladár Körösfői-Kriesch. Although he was involved in Hungarian, moreover contemporary art – after all, he was the government commissioner of the Hungarian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale – European art was his specialist field and at the time the European connections of the Gödöllő colony were not so widely known. I got drawn into it because from 1972 I was already working as a ‘jack of all trades’ at the department. I was the secretary and the librarian, and I also held tutorials, one of which was about the foundations of applied arts. I began looking into the theme and realized what an important role the Gödöllő studio played in Hungary’s applied arts at the turn of the century. And it was not only the European relations that linked Hungarian art to French Modernism; there was another, hardly researched story, the British-Hungarian connections.
– Was it absolutely clear for you to stay and teach at the university?
It so happened that I always had to choose between two things and although I know that it’s fortunate I’m not at all sure I’ve always made the right choice. Nóra Aradi, who taught at the department but was also in charge of the Art History Research Team, asked me to go over to the institute but I opted for the department. University requires a lot of work. You do not have the privilege as in a research institute where you are basically involved in the field you have chosen. Still, in the 80s you were able to travel to do research and attend conferences for a few days with the support of the university.
– How and in what direction has the department changed in recent decades?
There have been huge changes especially in the past decade, but I couldn’t name a direction because collective thinking has ceased and academic requirements have increased. I myself cannot see the future of the so-called Bologna process of higher education.
– You have mentioned that you perhaps did not always make the right choice. How do you view being director of the Budapest Kunsthalle?
I don’t regret it, although I must say it got me down. Immediately after the political changes of 1989 attitudes which have by now been shaped were not present. Previously, directors had been appointed; it was first in 1992 when a tender was announced. A few days before the deadline Kati Néray urged me to apply and, taking that as encouragement, I did so. Yet the reaction to my decision quite surprised me. I thought something new would begin, everything would happen democratically in the future and I would be working together with my colleagues, but it did not quite happen that way. The Kunsthalle did not become the workshop of exhibitions as creation. There was the curse of hierarchy – the mentality accustomed to the Kunsthalle’s position of power and the trade unions. I was appointed at the end of 1992 and relieved in January 1995 – it was a short but very intensive period.
– How come that your Kunsthalle experience did not deter you from taking on directorship of the Ernst Museum?
Following the Kunsthalle I was in an unpleasant situation. My enthusiasm was dampened and the Ernst Museum provided a great opportunity. I am very happy with the six years I spent there.
– Is there anything that you would really like to achieve?
The University of Debrecen invited me to write a textbook about folk art, with its changing content. I am working on that at the moment. I came across a publication of the 1991 international conference on art history in Zsennye. In that László Beke says that in Hungary researching folk art has always been problematic and thus is best avoided. It is still problematic, yet I will write the volume. And I would like to pursue absolutely new research fields.