Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 28. (Budapest, 2012)

Events 2009-2010

MUSEUM OF APPLIED ARTS EVENTS 2009-2010 2009 The year started with a very rich selection of exhibitions. Apart from previously opened exhibitions of selections from the museum's own collections (Collectors and Treasures; Ottoman-Turkish Carpets in the Collection of the Budapest Museum of Applied Arts), the exhibition Craft & Design; Trends and Tendencies of Hungarian Applied Arts, which opened in November 2008, could still be visited in early 2009 and before it closed, a professional conference was held on related issues on 11 January 2009. Contemporary individual and group showings also had an emphatic role over the year presenting the new works and sometimes whole oeuvres of decorative artists and designers. A great part of contemporary exhibitions testified to the environment-conscious thinking of recent decades. The Great Britain-based Coats Crafts, a firm of sewing accessories with a past of over 250 years and subsidiaries in some sixty countries including Hungary, plays a role in the popularization of textile art by supporting historical exhibitions and organizing contemporary showings. One of them was the exhibition of the best works submitted to the seventh biennial of a twoyearly embroidery competition announced by the Embroiderers' Guild, Hampton Court since 1995 (The Art of the Stitch International Open Exhibition). The itinerant exhibition was shown in Budapest from 30 January to 22 March. The curator of the Hungarian edition Erzsébet Pilinger enriched the selection with Hungarian works under the title: As the Thread Circles the Button - Needlework Techniques and Instruments in Contemporary Hungarian Art. The supplementary exhibition focused on the use of traditional embroidery and sewing techniques in Hungarian contemporary art. At the opening Zsuzsanna Renner, General Director of the museum, Jane Sweet, president of the Embroiderers' Guild, and Alistair McMinn for Coats Crafts greeted the public. Art historian Katalin Izinger spoke of the professional aspects and the exhibition was officially opened by Dr. Márta Schneider, undersecretary for cultural affairs. The Embroiderers' Guild published a 36-page catalogue in English with a preface by those who picked the pieces and the reproductions and brief descriptions of some 60 works. At the opening on 19 February of the annual Exhibition by Artists of Lajos Kozma Scholarship for Craft and Design; Exhibition by Artists of Moholy-Nagy Scholarship for Design, Dr. Miklós Bendzsel, President of the Hungarian Design Council greeted those present, then Dr. Márton Szentpéteri, leader of the Institute of Design of the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design delivered an opening 135