Gyergyádesz László, ifj. (szerk.): Békesség nektek! (Kecskemét, 2017)
The Contemporary Christian Iconographical Biennale and the art collection of Kecskemét
The Contemporary Christian Iconographical Biennale and the art collection of Kecskemét Christian, religious, sacred, ecclesiastical and liturgical art. When the founding curator initiated the Contemporary Christian Iconographical Biennale in Kecskemét in 2002, it was a deliberate decision to choose a broad range of fields from the obvious possibilities. In our opinion, in the case of the emphasis of any of the above mentioned concepts associated with the series of exhibitions would considerably have limited our potential within the 21st century and the all-time contemporary Hungarian art. Not only did we insist upon the Christian theme as one of the major components of the European art, but provided it with a key role as a kind of roadmark, which was also indicated in the name of the series. DuringthefirsteightContemporaryChristianlconographicalBiennales,altogether980artworks were exhibited after having been juried within the walls of the Cifrapalota (Ornamented Palace) which perfectly shows that the palette of Hungarian exhibitions had been lacking such a series. Unfortunately, we could hardly state that most issues of the fields defined by this series of exhibitions could be solved owing to the consequences of the artificial ideological suppression of the era after the Second World War. It would also be our naivety if we did not see the great-in addition, ideologically forced-conflict now and in the past between Christian iconography and its related fields and the 20th and 21st century contemporary art. The problem is especially grave since Christian iconography was a fundamental base of the European art for more than one and a half millennia. Anybody who understands visual arts and above all its context cannot forget this legacy in terms of the arts of our age. This is not a question of philosophy, faith or deliberately formed opinion. It is a series planned for the long term, being only at the first stages. If our successors systematically continue our work, then-according to our ambition-those future art historians could be the most fortunate who will study and be given access to centuries- old Hungarian fine art and applied art or at least to one specific segment thanks to these biennales. We have laid down the two foundations of that. The first element is the series of catalogues related to the biennales, which contains the coloured print and data of each and every exhibited artwork. Furthermore, the preface of the catalogues is sometimes
