Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 22. (Budapest, 2003)

Diary of Events 2002

the exhibition rooms at the National Széchényi Library. Dr. Ottó Trogmayer, a professor and retired director general of the Ferenc Móra Museum in Szeged, opened the event. Dr. Tibor Kovács, director general of the Hungarian National Museum, and Dr. István Monok, director general of the National Széchényi Library, made speeches of welcome. The Museum of Applied Arts was represented at the exhibition by forty artefacts selected by Judit Pataki, who also wrote a study on the Museum. In accordance with the traditions of this column, we have not generally been in the habit of mentioning exhibitions organised abroad by other institutions that show, in greater or smaller number, works from our collections. This time, however, we make an exception, for many reasons, first and foremost because the exhibition Hungarian Ceramics from the Zsolnay Manufactory 1853-2001 was an important event in artistic life in America in 2002. The exhibition was hosted by a prestigious New York institution, the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design and Culture, a circumstance that certainly contributed to the exhibition's resounding success with specialists and the general public alike. The second reason we are happy to report it is because the event - with the programmes and lectures accompanying it - brought important acknowledgement and professional success to Éva Csenkey, a colleague at the Museum and the erudite curator of the ceramics collection. It was she who undertook the decisive role in the creation and organisation of the exhibition that opened on 18 June 2002, and in the editing (and partly in the writing) of the impressive publication that accompanied it. She performed outstanding work in every respect. In 2002 the Museum played host to an important professional event. Following an initiative by Vera Varga, the organiser of the exhibition "The Meaning of Glass", a scientific conference was held on 13 May. It was entitled "The Role and Significance of Applied Arts the Tasks of the Museum of Applied Arts". The invited speakers were all well-known, much respected and highly experienced personages: Dr. László Beke; György Fekete; Dr. Katalin Keserű; Professor István Magyari-Beck; Emő Marosi, deputy president of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences; and Hedvig N. Dvorszky. Along with colleagues from the Museum - Károly Simon, general director; Gabriella Ballá, Éva Csenkey; Györgyi Nagy; and Erzsébet Vadászi - they voiced their thoughts in connection with issues featuring many different aspects and requiring different approaches. The year 2002 witnessed the opening of two important exhibitions at the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Eastern Asiatic Arts. The Japan Foundation's travelling exhibition entitled Contact - Responses, which presented contemporary Japanese applied arts, was on view to visitors between 3 May and 2 June. Early October saw the opening of the show Demons and Protectors. Folk Religion in Tibetan and Mongolian Buddhism; this could be seen in 2003 also. At the György Rath Museum two exhibitions that opened earlier - Oriental Art Collecting in Hungary and The Art of Chinese Ceramics - enjoyed considerable popularity with the public in 2002, too. Judit Pataki