Photographs are art objects – they also need restoring from time to time author: Erzsébet Marton MúzeumCafé spoke to Zita Sor and József Ormos about photographic restoration. Zita Sor: As far as I know there are two places which have specialists trained as restorers. There is Judit Papp in the National Széchényi Library and ourselves in the National Museum. Both institutes have photo restoration workshops and although the equipment leaves a […]
Recently uncovered Gothic frescos in the Inner City Parish Church author: Mária Prokopp, art historian In the heart of Budapest, there stands the medieval inner-city parish church, built on the walls of an almost 2000-year-old Roman fort. After 150 years of research it can be said that all of its artistic qualities have now been revealed. The plan was to paint the sanctuary by Easter 2010, but during the course […]
Baroque fresco painting in Hungary The painting by Maulbertsch in the ceremonial hall of the Bishop’s Palace, Szombathely author: János Jernyei Kiss, art historian, president of the Baroque Research Team Research began at the Department of Art History, Péter Pázmány Catholic University, in autumn 2008. The aim of the research is to document the entirety of Baroque fresco painting in Hungary and to publish detailed, technical and iconographic descriptions similarly to the project conducted in Munich Corpus der barocken Deckenmalerei in Deutschland. The research is […]
What should be the criteria for museums developing collections of contemporary art? Barnabás Bencsik, Director, Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art: The Ludwigs’ collection was initiated during the Cold War and comprised west European and American pop art, the art of the 1960s, non-conformist Soviet and Bulgarian oppositionist works, as well as official art of the GDR. This situation was inherited in the period after The […]
Looking behind the scenes, or museums presenting their own activity Ask a curator! author: Sándor Juhász On 1 September last year a one-day forum was held on Twitter. The project Ask a Curator involved staff of 250 museums, galleries and arts organisations from twenty-three countries answering questions. Most people wanted to know what role curators play in organising exhibitions and handling collections. Identifying forgeries and mistaken attributions, and excluding them from […]
Alinda Veiszer on opening the soul, an orangery and Asia MúzeumCafé 22. author: Eszter Szablyár No Los Angeles gallery sold drawings by Ferenc Rófusz in 1981, though local connoisseurs would have snatched up images from his Oscar-winning, three-minute animation. Years later he took them to Alinda Veiszer and the TV programme Záróra (Closing Time). If Prima prize-winning Alinda Veiszer is herself approached and asked about museums she compares a crowd-pulling […]
Museums must re-define their own role Interview with Ibolya Bereczki, president of the Museums Board of the Hungarian National Cultural Fund (NKA) MúzeumCafé 22. author: Marianna Berényi “Support for exhibitions, especially temporary shows, as well as scholarly work and publications is continuous. Comparing past tender announcements with those of the present, data sheets are becoming more detailed. Newly introduced inset sheets were included in the mechanism of the last tender decisions on applications for restoration and art work protection in 2010, as […]
“I do it my way” An exclusive interview with Marc Restellini, director of the Pinacothèque de Paris MúzeumCafé 22. author: Orsolya Radványi The Pinacothèque de Paris gallery opened in 2003 and has had a colossal career in a short time. The managers of other, centuries old, highly respected museums in Paris with large collections, such as the Louvre or the Musée d’Orsay, and of the more recent ones with contemporary art collections, such as the Centre Pompidou […]
Revival of the Jókai cult Conversation with MúzeumCafé award-winner, Zsuzsa Kalla MúzeumCafé 22. author: Péter Hamvay Zsuzsa Kalla is curator of the highly successful exhibition at the Balatonfüred villa which used to belong to the writer Mór Jókai. We discussed the issue of how the traditional, somewhat dusty genre of the memorial-house can be reinvigorated. The Jókai Villa is one of those classicist summer retreats which fortunately survived the 20th century […]
An often plundered and scattered collection The Palóc Museum in Balassagyarmat MúzeumCafé 22. author: Ádám Sztankay Iván Nagy, who died in 1898, bequeathed his estate to the Nógrád County Museum Association, stipulating that the money could only be spent on building a new museum. A tender was announced in 1910 and won by the architect Gyula Wälder. Work began but finances ran out, so one of the wings of the building […]