What makes an exhibition effective?
International Forum in Budapest
MúzeumCafé 11.
The International Exhibition Organizers (IEO) association held its annual meeting in the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest on 23-24 April. The museum was asked by IEO to organise the 2009 event keeping in mind that on each occasion the participants examine exhibition organising and loaning in the region of the organising country. Hence part of the meeting was devoted to the state/exhibition guarantee system and loaning practice of Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Romania and the Czech Republic. Participants were given detailed information about insurance policy fusing commercial insurance and exhibition guarantee called ‘exhibition counter-guarantee’ in the state budget law, which – so far applied only in Hungary – is developed by the Fine Arts Museum. According to the Polish speaker, Dorota Folga-Januszewska, 30 per cent of art works in Polish museums do not have a clear provenance, therefore they are generally not loaned. As a local feature she also emphasised that Poland always requires security escort throughout the country. Although this lays a significant burden on the loaner, insurance fees can be often reduced. Lolita Jablonskiene spoke about a vigorous exhibition organisational activity in connection with Vilnius as Cultural Capital of Europe, which hopefully will provide a new dynamism for the development of exhibition guarantee and generally for exhibition administration. In the Czech Republic the restitution of mansions and art objects, which were either confiscated as Nazi military loot or nationalised, was completed by the middle of the 1990s. Thus as regards ownership there are no legal obstacles to the loaning of Czech works of art.