Lost meaning – museum amnesia
Meditating on the exhibitions in the museums of Hatvan
MúzeumCafé 51.
There are outstanding exhibitions in Hatvan’s museum. However, visitors might feel rather uncertain when they approach the HatvanyLajos Museum, since they are confronted by two signs on the building. HatvaniÉrtéktár (Hatvan Asset Repository) can be read on the left and MúzeumSerfőzde (Museum Brewery) on the right. There is a spacious gate in the middle without any sign. Behind the door on the right a gastropub brewing its own beer welcomes customers who, if they so desire, can reach the museum from there. Yet the sign HatvanyLajos Museum is missing from the building, though the name remains the same after renovation in 2014. “With the rebirth of the HatvanyLajos Museum following completion of its renovation and extension in autumn 2014, Hatvan’s cultural self-consciousness returned,” the information sheet about the museum declares. Yet how can a museum operate without its own history, memory and, partly, without its name? The history of the museum, which was established in 1969, is summarised on its website rather densely: “In the 1970s the museum provided an opportunity for so-called ‘tolerated’ avant-garde artists, who were regarded as being in opposition to the socialist system, to exhibit their works. It was at this time that, having received a substantial number of works from the widow of LajosHatvany, a noted arts patron, the museum adopted his name.” Indeed, that happened, but the truth was that the outstanding ethnographer ÁkosKovács, who passed away in 2014, documented, presented and created with exhibitions a web of cultural connections which turned this small museum without an art collection into one of the most important cultural institutions of the period. By now all that has become a disappearing legend, but it was a reality. Kovács proffered three traditions, different cultural traditions, and created a museum project which new generations can discover with good reason and which should not only be appropriate for the museum to present but would also be in its vital interest. Kovács exhibited works by the Hungarian avant-garde masters who were partly on the margins, as well as the then prominent artists of the next generation. He ventured beyond the boundaries of the fine arts. A Kurtág concert accompanied DezsőKorniss’s exhibition and BélaKondor’s exhibition was followed by the world premiere of a ZoltánJeney piece. At the same time, Kovács also introduced the approach of cultural anthropology in a brand new way for the era, with which he offered and formulated
a new interpretation regarding the documents of folk art and urban public culture – something which at the time did not even merit a name in academia.