Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 20. (Budapest, 2001)

Diary of events 2000

and the Museum of Applied Arts, to mark the centenary of the first national exhibition of picture post cards in Hungary, hosted by the Museum of Applied Arts in 1900. The journal Képeslevelezőlap (Picture Post Card), a publication issued on special occasions, carried a survey article by Hilda Horváth in its 15th number, which appeared to accompany the exhibition called Post Cards Designed by Hungarian Artists and opened on 2 June by art historian Katalin Geller. The exhibition received visitors till 17 September. Having been closed for more than ten years and submitted to extensive restoration-necessitated in 1996 by the gradually worsening state of repair characterising the building-the Nagytétény Castle Museum was reopened on 4 June. Displayed in the 28 rooms of the permanent exhibition entitled The Art of FurnitureMaking from the Gothic to the Biedermeier are stoves, chandeliers, carpets, tapestries, pottery, glassware and fine metalwork objects that once functioned as furniture as well as some three hundred pieces and suites of furniture proper. Staged by Ferenc Batári and Erzsébet Vadászi, the exhibition was opened by Undersecretary of the Ministry of National Cultural Heritage Zsolt Vissy. Bearing the same title as the show, the catalogue meant to guide the visitor through the exhibition from room to room was also the work of Ferenc Batári and Erzsébet Vadászi. Twenty contemporary Hungarian artists-painters, graphic artists and textile designers-undertook to revive, and fill with new contents, the half-forgotten art of tapestry making. The material displayed at the exhibition Tapes Itineris-Itinerant Tapestries 2000 was inspired by the tradition, demonstrably present in Hungary's cultural history since the House of Árpád, of easily movable tapestries that once belonged to the luggage of ecclesiastic or secular dignitaries. The show was put on by Judit Pataki with the active participation of artists contributing their works to the exhibition. Katalin Dávid, Széchenyi Prize winning art historian, and Géza Entz, Director General of the Directorate of Cultural Institutes, addressed the opening ceremony held on 4 July. The accompanying bilingual publication was edited by textile designer Márta Simonffy. The exhibition, which is hoped to be on display at several Collegia Hungarica abroad in the future, was open to the public till 10 September. Árpád Göncz filled the office of President of the Hungarian Republic for ten years. Mr. Göncz donated to public collections many of the gifts that he had received from heads of states and institutions visited at home and abroad during his presidency. Before being deposited in the store-rooms of the appropriate museums, these objects were introduced to the public together at an exhibition called Gifts of the President. The event was opened, in the presence of the president, by the Director General of the Museum of Applied Arts and also the organiser of the exhibition Zsuzsa Lovag on 22 September. (Although statistics are unusual in a publication like this, one figure may not be out of place here to suggest the extraordinary popularity of the exhibition, which was seen by 10,725 visitors in the single month that it was on show.) As in the previous year, in 2000, too, two retrospective exhibitions were devoted to as many practitioners of the applied arts. From 27 October to 26 November, the public could admire the exhibition surveying the work of interior designer József Király, organised, with the expert help of Erzsébet Vadászi, by Ágnes Fejes and the artist himself. The opening address was given by architect László Deák. In 2000, the Museum of Applied Arts purchased the heritage of Arnos Jaschik, a teacher and artist-craftsman whose work has recently been undeservedly ignored. The most valuable and unique part of the estate comprises a series of graphic plates meant by the artist to be a set of illustrations. No doubt, the work illustrated was possibly the most monumental that an artist can ever choose-the Bible, and within that the New testament. It was these works that Ágnes Prékopa arranged for an exhibition held in the museum between 1 December and 7 January (from Advent to Epiphany). The address by István Jeleníts, Chairman of the Department of Aesthetics at the