Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 27. (Budapest, 2009)
Márta KOVALOVSZKY: Unfinished Process
shop issues, the study of consciously-narrowed subjects, and so the Velem workshop came into being at a moment of historic significance for the art form. "Textile art is still young, and much experimentation lies before it. Since its material is certainly also ancient, its hidden traditions must be sought out and at the same time its tasks and future worked out. In this process, the possibility of collective work holds much promise..." wrote an art historian observing the work. 1 9 Anyone entering the house in Velem where the work went on each summer experienced that distinctive "workshop atmosphere" in which the smell of wool, flax, satin and gauze, the fine rustle of cellophane and the harsh noise of the tools mixed in with the buzz of conversation. Excitement pervaded the atmosphere like an invisible spider's web, as diverse ideas swirled and mixed. The single-person workshops of the "golden age" gave way to a special kind of collective activity: although each participant followed her own plans and ideas in her work, materials and questions did not stop at the thresholds of the little rooms, they flowed into the passages and flooded every tiny free space. The lights burned long into the night: this could be regarded as symbolic; the light represented the artists' inquiring glances, searching attention, and tireless imagination, illuminating the dark spaces of unknown provinces. Painstaking investigations and daring experiments took place in that building and around it. Gabriella Farkas' work found the place of textiles within architecture, and she sought out interactions between the two. Investigations by Anikó Bajkó, Anna Pauli and Márta Vető led in another direction: their experiments in the creation of organic textiles led to a coexistence of the natural environment with "nature" made by human hand, and the photographs taken in the Velem garden convincingly convey the special harmony this radiated and the surprisingly broad perspectives it opened up. Some of them went even further, casually stepping out of the framework of individual work and materialcentred experiments. In the events held by Judit Kele and associates, the participants, in textile veils, bent down among the gentle vegetation of the hillside, where the movement of the human body, the floating/flapping of the drapery and the quiet calm of natural forms merged into a rich harmony. In 1979, Zsuzsa Szenes and Gizella Solti covered a barrier-imitation structure with red and white striped fabric, set it up in the Velem forest, went round it, crawled under it, and photographed it, "breaking down the border" in their own playful way. Velem is close to the Austro-Hungarian border, and this fact lent a special meaning and significance to their work. Such events clearly showed how far the thinking of textile artists had come from the classical interpretation of the art. It also indicated other important changes. As was plain to anyone attending the autumn exhibitions in Velem presenting the work of the summer workshops, the new generation who had grown up and matured in the 1970s, the second great generation of Hungarian textiles, who had carried on from the creators of the "golden age", had inherited their courage and openness and set off on new roads. In one corner of the exhibition held for the 1977 Velem Open days was Zsuzsa Szenes' Cella ; beside it hung Ilona Lovas' Ablak [Window] with a silvery "spider's web" woven across old window panes; under the beams of the ceiling wound Eszter Sándor's knitted/crocheted "pipes"; on the brick floor Kati Gulyás' canvas cylinders 162
