A Kassák Múzeum kiállítási katalógusai, kisebb kiadványai

Archaikus és modern. Válogatás Raum Attila gyűjteményéből

The Universality of the Naive Artists Pál Bá nszki (emeritus

, retired director of the Hungarian Naive Museum) Attila Raum started his activity by collecting Naive Art works. The first encouraging steps in this direction were made by the permanent and temporary exhibitions of the Naive Museum, Kecskemét together with those in the sous-terrain gallery of the very same museum. Later, in the '80s there were professional shows in the Kecskemét Gallery that initiated the base of his collection. As high and low tide change, Naive Art has intermittently raised interest or been completely disregarded since the beginning of the 20th century in Hungary. In the first half of that century Péter Benedek, János Gajdos, Elek Győri and András Süli were paid attention from among the most remarkable natural talents. The next „wave" came following the World Exhibition in Brussels in 1958. Most of these creators were advanced in years, working mainly lonely, isolated both mentally and physically. Their original profession showed a picture as variable as a kaleidoscope. Neither was their artwork homogeneous. It was their life experience and individual character that inspired their paintings and sculptures. Naive Art is something like self-expression that is close to animate nature. Like children, naive artists start everything at the very beginning. As if they discovered the world by their paintings and sculptures. As if they each reinvented art itself, and its mysterious power. They live in constant discovery, starting everything all over again. Although they have grown up, their works/oeuvres, still preserve the naive and infantile way of looking at things, as well as a certain purity. Naive artists do not follow any tendency in style; they do not know the expectations and rules of the teachers of schools be those free-style or academic. They do not work on the basis of any clichés or patterns, and are initiated rather by their own experiences, instead of ready-made forms. They go back to the source of their own feeling, sentiment and perception. The lack of professional skills made up for by their unbiased, positive and uninhibited work. The absence of acquired training is substituted by an elemental and suggestive sense of expression, as well as precise observation that submerges into the slightest detail. As a matter of fact, Naive Art is regarded as the folk art of the 20th century. The most significant and apparent difference between folk art and Naive Art probably is thai the former clings to the needs of a certain community and to its style while the latter one is highly individual, and principally based on personal mythology. Naive paintings and sculptures often carry the traces of an archaic way of looking at things, as well as of collective memory, regarding both their function and the way how they appear. Böröcz András Szent Sebestyén