Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 16. (Budapest, 1997)

Kiállítások, események 1995-96

Faith deities respectively. The Museum's material was supplemented with items from private collections. The original environment of the art objects and the atmosphere of Tibetan monasteries was captured in photographs taken on location by Béla Kelényi and Paulius Normantas, and in one room, which recalled a monks' assembly hall, there was a mock-up of an altar. The outstandingly successful exhibition was supplied with a catalogue, part of which was in colour. It contained the first account of the subject in Hungarian, and its bilingual (Hungarian and English) analyses of pictures contained a number of first accounts of, and solutions to, particular specialist problems. The exhibition was opened by Professor György Kara, head of the Department of Inner-Asia at the Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. In accordance with tradition, the series of small-scale exhibitions entitled "Rarities and Curiosities from the Collections of the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Eastern Asiatic Art" continued. Of the exhibitions in this series, one was linked to the above-mentioned exhibition "Tibetan and Mongolian Buddhist Painted Scrolls": the mini-exhibition entitled "The Restoration of Two Mongolian Painted Scrolls" (Ferenc Hopp Museum, October 20, 1995 - February 6, 1996). In this exhibition the museologist Judit Vinkovics presented work of the painting restorer and artist Izabella Maracskó and of the restorer of textiles Katalin Z. Fikó by means of photographic documentation. Another small-scale exhibition entitled "Figurai Printing Woodblocks from Mongolia" (Hopp Museum, February 12 - June 4, 1996), which was arranged by Judit Vinkovics, was also connected with the theme of Tibetan and Mongolian art. To close this exhibition, a special event took place: four learned Tibetan monks from the Gyiito Monastery in northern India performed a week-long (May 28 - June 6, 1996) ritual in which, following a traditional purification ritual, they created the sand mandata of Vajrabhairava, a tantric Defender of the Faith deity. The creation process was followed by the ritual destruction of the sand mandala, which was also accompanied by music. The third exhibition in the series concerning Buddhist art was "Japanese Buddhist Art", which opened at the György Ráth Museum on June 26, 1996. Organized by Eva Cseh, it was preceded by the dismantling of the earlier exhibition "Japanese Art", and by the re-decoration of the rooms. From the approximately 130 art objects selected from the Museum's own collection, depictions of Buddhas and Arhats - the oldest was a dry lacquer sculpture from the 8th century - were placed in the first room. The second room was devoted to the material representing the cult of Amida; this contained the richest material in the exhibition. It was in this room that a mock-up of an altar was erected to evoke the atmosphere of Japanese shrines. In the third room depictions invested with the attributes of Shinto deities associated with esoteric trends were put on display. Finally, the fourth room presented objects demonstrating the relationship between Zen Buddhism and art. The demonstration of this relationship was further augmented by the display of some tea-room furniture and ritual objects loaned to the Museum; these had been presented by the Urasenke Foundation to the Hungary-Japan Friendship Society. The exhibition was opened by the poet and painter Judit Kemenczky. The re-decoration of the rooms, as well as the exhibition and the catalogue illustrated in colour, were produced with the financial support from the Japan Foundation. On account of its subject, I would mention a small-scale exhibition which had been staged earlier, at the time of the Chinese Buddhism exhibition. In this mini-exhibition, entitled "Jizo Bodhisattva, the Patron of the Dead. The Restoration of a Japanese Buddhist Sculpture" (Hopp Museum, February 8 May 28, 1995), the museologist Györgyi Fajcsák displayed the work of the sculpture restorer and artist Csaba Dobai by means of photographic documentation. The closing exhibition in our Buddhist art