Schenk Lea (szerk.): II. Pest megyei Iparművészeti Tárlat. Szentendrei Képtár 1990. október 23 - 1991. január 15 (Szentendre, 1991)
The 2nd Applied Arts Show of Pest County features a wide range of artefacts - functional pieces, objects for interior decoration, figurative plastics and three dimensional objects. The works made of various materials - ceramics, textile, glass, iron, porcelain and wood - are mostly non-functional, however. Apart from wood turners and carvers and a few glass designers there is only one industrial designer and an interior decorator who are solely interested in designing and making functional objects. An especially high proportion of autonomous works of art are produced in ceramic and textile art compared to ceramic or porcelain objects of use or functional textile designs. In ceramics - regardless to the fact if we consider pieces of figurative or representational character, works of expressive organic formation or reliefs and plastics of geometrical abstract inspiration - the orientation towards fine arts is the most apparent feature save, perhaps, the diversity of individual styles. A similar pluralism of form and style can be observed in the autonomous pieces of textile or gobelin designers. There is a definite interest in plastical issues displayed in textile reliefs, three dimensional objects and textile puppets found among the exhibits, most of the artists, however, produce two dimensional textiles. Natural inspiration, Constructivist-geometrical approach or an organic motivation with expressive tones are all represented among the exhibits. Since there is such a large proportion of pieces tending towards fine arts in the fields of ceramics and textile art which make up for two thirds of the exhibits it is worth considering how this series of applied arts shows staged in every fourth year are to be continued in the future. If this orientation towards fine arts remains dominant in the work of applied artists - and we have no reason to suppose that this decades long tendency is going to change - we are most probably compelled to organize the next show with a wider scope than merely applied arts. Perhaps it would be wiser to focus on specific genres or else to shift the stress on features of fine arts and design. Another possibility would be to provide exhibition facilities annually for different media as a basis of a belter judgement of artists and artefacts which would still guarantee creative preiods of 3 or 4 years necessary for the success of a series of periodical shows. It is not accidental that some of the pieces go beyond the frameworks of applied arts. In the last few decades there has been a modification of structures in applied arts which we may comprehend only if we think in a wider scope than genres and media, that is, in interdisciplinary relations of art, for it is in the different disciplines that problems of genre and media emerge most clearly and it is right here where functional changes are originated. As most applied arts shows, the present one features three types of artefacts provided that we disregard genres and stylistic tendencies: applied arts objects, sketches and products of design and works of fine arts, therefore, all disclipines of art, save architecture, are represented. Apart from fine and applied arts and architecture, design has also developed into a discipline with differentiated interior structure. The present complicated situation of applied arts among disciplines of art should thus be observed in its relations with fine arts and design. The roots of the functional and structural changes in applied arts go back partly to the modification of its relations towards fine arts, partly to its connections with design; a new discipline which is motivated by a kind of opposition. First I intend to relate the former issue then I discuss problems concerning design. The boundaries between fine arts and applied arts are about to shift or to disappear completely. Instead of the former isolation recently there has been a close connection between the two disclipines with a complex system of interactions which have produced an intricate network of interdependence. Their separately developed traditions provide a mutual opportunity for the renewal of genres further promoted by the individual creativity of each artist utilizing the specific possibilities vested in each medium. The breakthrough towards fine arts began in the late sixties in ceramic art, while textile art "came of age" in the seventies and in the eighties artistic glass design completed the process. Therefore in no way can we think in strictly isolated disclipines. The same way as painting has departed from the two dimensional character of panel paintings by the emergence of the collage and then proceeded towards more plastical expressions in coloured reliefs, the functional change of ceramic and textile art and artistic glass design has been effected by this escapade into the third dimension. Even the renewal of the par excellence two dimensional medium of the textile has been brought about by such an interest and textile art has returned to the traditional two dimensions only after a decade long departure into plastical formations enriched with the disclipine of autonomy and the analytical approach of various "isms". Parallelly with a growing interest in plastic issues there has been a process of assimilation into fine arts in certain fields of applied arts. Applied arts genres which aimed at developing towards fine arts inevitably had to face the problems fine arts have been struggling with for over decades. One of the most essential of these was the altered conception of constructing media and space. From the plastic revolution in panel painting via the anti-artistic problems posed by the object the process is going towards the supposition of four dimensional events, that is, while thinking in strictly separated disclipines is becoming impossible, anti-artistic ways of expression emerge without the demand of existing as an objectivated work of art. The inspiring factor in the solution to these problems in ceramic and textile art and glass design has been provided by the demolition of the strict boundaries between painting and plastic art since if the boundaries between the genres of fine arts can disappear, so can their counterparts between fine arts and applied arts, especially because there have been sporadic examples of this in art history (Cf.: the plastic ornaments of mediaeval priests’ vestments in textile art and the coloured ceramic reliefs of the Robbia family in the field of ceramics in the 15th century). In applied arts genres the interference of interior demands of renewal stemming from the crisis of values and the external influnces from fine arts have produced an interest in plastical problems of the representational functiofi. Nevertheless, it does not merely imply a delayed realization of certain influences from fine arts because in the frameworks of applied arts genres there 6
