Prékopa Ágnes (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 31. (Budapest, 2017)
Zsombor JÉKELY: The Museum of Applied Arts in 2016
draw the attention to the unique cultural significance of Art Nouveau which is present with its very different trends in the partner cities. Participating in projects funded by the European Union, their cooperation resulted in travelling exhibitions, conferences, scientific labs and publications. During the General Assembly held in Glasgow in 2016 the Museum of Applied Arts officially took over the representation of Budapest in the RANN. Amongst the first results of our membership is that the Hungarian initiative Art Nouveau World Day (held on the 10th of June commemorating the death of the two great architects: the Catalan Antoni Gaudí and the Hungarian Ödön Lechner) became part of the cultural program of the RANN. With the active support of the Réseau Art Nouveau Network, in the course of 2016 the Museum participated in the development of a European Danube Interreg project. The project application, coordinated by the Municipality of Oradea, Romania, was successful, and the project will be realized starting from January 2017. The project is aimed at sustainable protection and promotion of Art Nouveau heritage in the Danube region. n. Exhibitions, displays and events Before embarking on the reconstruction and renewal of the Museum of Applied Arts, a series of exhibitions were still realized in 2016. The exhibitions can be regarded as experimental for the Museum, because they represented new ways of making decorative art and design accessible to the public. One exhibition, drawn entirely from the collection of the Museum, experiments with new ways of grouping the material, focusing on colour instead of chronology or materials. The other new exhibition, dedicated to bicycle design, focuses on social aspects of design, while also representing new ways of cooperation with other institutions and independent curators. Finally, our third exhibition, opened near the end of the year, experiments with new ways of presenting a new acquisition, the desk of Marcell Breuer, by developing an entire exhibition focusing on the desks of 20th-century architects. Exhibitions at the Museum of Applied Arts In the Mood for Colours 1 April 2016 - summer 2017 Curators of the exhibition: Balázs Semsey, Szabolcs Serfőző Everything in this exhibition is arranged according to its dominant colour. The greens are in one room, the blues in another, and the reds in the third. The aim is to give a new perspective on the dazzling variety of artworks held in the Museum of Applied Arts, which means that everything on display here comes from the Museum’s own collections. Since colour is the organising principle, this time, contrasted with the traditionally historic approach of museum narratives, objects of all kinds—old and modern, sacred and profane, festive and everyday—appear side by side, opening up these artworks to new meanings and interpretations. The exhibition consists of almost 25 thematic groups ranging from eosin-glazed Zsolnay ceramics through blue patterned printed textiles designed by William Morris to red liturgical objects. The selection 163
