Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 27. (Budapest, 2009)

Márta KOVALOVSZKY: Unfinished Process

door to a world of previously inconceivable diversity and colour. It was techniques which provided most of the novelty, because traditional gobelin weaving, hand-dyeing and batik gave way for the first time to long-forgotten ideas from old textiles, techniques from the modest field of household decorations: crochet work, szálvarrás (stitch embroidery) and gyapjútűzés (unspun wool stitch) and lush combinations of these. In the subsequent years, the rapid development fortunately went beyond the level of technical revivals and household innovation, and took on impressive self-confidence as hitherto unknown territory was conquered. The new movement uprooted and re-interpreted the fundamentals of the art form, broke into the areas of content, expression and function, and with unconscious daring, wiped away old boundaries and created its own new world in independence and freedom. Initially, this "liberation" felt the beneficial effects of certain historic styles, most of all Art Nouveau, whose revival in the early sixties became a major formative power in fashion and art across the world. This was no coincidence. The desire for integration, which gained strength in art and crafts in the midsixties, found its closest predecessor in Art Nouveau's aspirations to universality and its desire to pervade all of life. Norwegian art historian Tschudi Madsen pointed out that behind the wave of nostalgia was a real affinity between the two eras.'

1 "It is a fine thing to think back to old times. What happened a long time ago seems more beautiful," is what textile artist Zsuzsa Szenes wrote on one of her drawings at that time.'' Deeper changes emerged out of the unparalleled fertility of the textile techniques and the alluring form-culture of Art Nouveau. Until 1968, textile art and its history basically worked within the concept of textiles which kept to the plane of the wall, and had a pictorial (painting-like) status and decorative f unctions. This meant compositions of traditional textile material, neutral content, obediently adapting to, and adding to, their surroundings, without any independence. By the early seventies, however, the works signalling the change of function of textiles - like Margit Szilvitzky's suspended Butterfly (1970) and "chasubles" (1972) - had made their entrance. These were not picture-like quasipaintings, but artworks which asserted themselves in, occupied, and dominated space. Works which eschewed all decorative purpose. They drew their strength from their independence and their own internal values: their purpose was to express some internal thought using special textile materials without for a moment having to take into account the abstract concept of environment or specific milieu. Decorative function gave up its central role to self-expression, the courage to realise ideas in a unique material. This was the most far-reaching change, putting textiles on to a new course and creating new ideas, new composition types and new functions. The works by Margit Szilvitzky mentioned here are only examples. The change in direction was not the result of an isolated workshop work, but emerged from the similar thoughts of many artists at the same time. It is sufficient to cite the felt rolls and ribbons of Gábor Attalai, the textile sculptures of Irén Balázs and Marianne Szabó, and the attempts at art objects by Zsuzsa Szenes. It was they who conceived and expressed the demand for the art form to concentrate on its own internal problems as a sovereign, independent entity - in a word, as art. This concentration was naturally accompanied with a kind of openness. At the beginning of the nineteenseventies, textile artists only "harried" and pushed out the traditional boundaries of the 154