Barki Gergely - Gulyás Gábor: Újragondolt Czóbel. A szentendrei Czóbel Múzeum állandó kiállítása (Szentendre, 2016)
Gábor GULYÁS Director of the Ferenczy Museum Center CZÓBEL'S HOME Everyone has two homes. One is the physical abode—the house where we live, the street we walk every day, the city or village where we spend our days, where we return in the evening. Lights, noises and smells which routine has made familiar and cosy: these are all parts of our physical home. As the world around us, it also includes our objects, even the smallest things. The other home is the spiritual and intellectual tradition we were born into, and which keeps changing like the flat we live in—yet it has something permanent about it. It comprises our studies, poems and pieces of music, experiences of art, dreams and intuitions. Ideas which create intimate surroundings. Things we can think of as our own, while sharing them with others. One likes to be at home. And this is true of both homes—however different they are, both in nature and dimensions. Some live in vast houses and tight spaces of spirit and intellectwhile for others the case is just the opposite. Some have almost no connection between their physical and spiritual homes. This is nearly as tragic as being homeless physically or spiritually—something that denies the possibility of a meaningful life. Losing both homes signals the end of a life. Because from that point, nothing can invest being with a meaning. This is not a very common occurrence. More often, people are survived by their homes and belongings—only to come to waste in the manner of the culture, the ideas and ideals their owners once felt were imperishable. There is, however, yet another possibility. In exceptional cases the two homes might meet in all but perfect harmony. One serves the other and vice versa. Béla Czóbel, one of the greatest masters of modern Hungarian art, took great care throughout his long life to maintain this agreement. He was as much at home in his flat in Paris and Berlin as in the most exciting trends in the French and German painting of the period, Fauvism and Expressionism. The same exceptional harmony marks the home he created in Szentendre with soulmate and fellow artist Mária Modok. Czóbel was probably motivated by the desire to maintain the agreement mentioned when he made the unusual decision of setting up his own museum. Béla Czóbel’s vast oeuvre is kept at a number of prestigious collections in Hungary and abroad. As in life, so in immortality he continues to inhabit Paris, New York, Berlin and Budapest. Yet, nowhere else is his presence more intensive, more authentic, than here, in Szentendre. This is his home—both in the physical and the spiritual sense. It is our heritage to keep, maintain and look after this rich home. This is why we renovated the building, which in the course of forty years had fallen into great disrepair, and this is why we staged a new permanent exhibition in the house: we would like the harmony Czóbel bequeathed to us to continue. 25
