Not radically different, but certainly with different efficiency
Director Györgyi Fajcsák on the future of the Ferenc Hopp Museum
MúzeumCafé 41.
In January the government decided that from 1 March the Ferenc Hopp Museum of East Asian Arts should operate under the auspices of the Museum of Fine Arts. Several reasons were involved: besides the physical proximity of the two museums and the connections between the features of their collections, another important factor involved consideration of the will of the founder, Ferenc Hopp. The change enables the museum to again function as a significant place presenting Asian arts in a lively manner. The director of the museum, Györgyi Fajcsák, told MúzeumCafe that the decision produced a liberating effect on the staff, since as a result there would be an opportunity to implement their exhibition and research projects. Besides the opportunities, she also mentioned the international significance of the museum, as well as the tasks and opportunities of researchers of Oriental arts in Hungary. The museum was established in 1919 in line with the wishes of Ferenc Hopp, who left his artefacts collected in Asia to the Hungarian state on condition they would be held together in a museum bearing his name. Initially it was a branch of the Fine Arts Museum, since the chief supporter of the Hopp collection, Zoltán Felvinczi Takács, worked there. This lasted until 1948 when the museum was linked to the Museum of Applied Arts and received the György Ráth villa to house its permanent exhibition. Then recently the Applied Arts Museum aimed to implement complete centralisation and, going against Hopp’s will, it downgraded the museum, not wanting it to operate as one presenting Asian art. Thus the present decision intends to reinstate the original conditions: once there is a nearly 100-year-old institution, an expert place for displaying and researching Asian arts.