KÖTŐDÉSEK. A VIDÉKI MAGYARORSZÁG EMLÉKEZETE (Kiállítási katalógusok - Szentendre, Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, 2003)

ATTACHMENTS AND MEMORIES The exhibition in the Skanzen Gallery of the Hungarian Open Air Museum with the title Attachments presenting works of artists from Szentendre can be considered as a special and extraordinary exhibition. It takes stock of the contemporary art in Szentendre and manifests at the same time the birth of a new collection. These two characteristics of the exhibition don't arise from a caprice of the organiser. For the last decades it has been an existing demand of the profession to create a comprehensive exhibition of the art of Szentendre in the 20th century completing the system of small art museums or replacing these institutions. The MűvészetMalom (ArtMill) opened a temporary exhibition called Hungarian Art in the 20th century - seen from Szentendre in the autumn 2002 urging to meet this long felt need. The professional functions and tasks of the Hungarian Open Air Museum are by no way determined by the aspects of the so called high arts (and those of the art of the town of Szentendre). We see here however very respectable efforts made by the Museum to help the very problematic cause of the permanent presentation and representation of the contemporary art in Szentendre, which remained for decades without a proper solution. The institution provides its help by collecting and presenting works of art, which not only reveal their relationship with, and transition to folk art but are also sustained by the vernacular tradition. The other important characteristic is the intention to create this collection: the products of contemporary Hungarian art - limited by the extremely tight economic and financial possibilities - might be handed down to future generations accidentally, if at all. As a consequence of the passivity forced upon the cause of the museums in the field of organisation of collecting art works, there is hardly a chance for the work of a contemporary artist to reach the collection of a museum. Therefore, the creation of the art collection in the Hungarian Open Air Museum offers new chances for the artists of Szentendre and their works. The exhibition Attachments - the core of the collection - is a present of the artists themselves and offers an overview of the trends of the art of Szentendre at the turn of the Millennium. It shows furthermore the way to follow in the field of well planned collecting work in the near future by uniting in an exhibition the works of 50 painters, graphic artists, sculptors, industrial artists and photographers. We hope that enough (financial) strength will be available in the future to practice the method (acquisition) of the classical enlargement of art collections. When dealing with the subject of the artistic traditions of Szentendre, it cannot be avoided - and it is especially justified when introducing the Attachment-Collection - to quote the (many times referred to) thoughts of one of the most outstanding Hungarian painters of the 20th century, whose name is linked with Szentendre, Lajos Vajda. The artist of tragic fate put in 1936 into words the thoughts which are today as true as at those times: "... nothing can be done without tradition, and this applies <

:to the Hungarian circumstances too, where this means the Hungarian folk art. All the rest, which is outside this tradition is mostly valueless rubbish-heap (although pearls can be found here sometimes too), absolutely useless, therefore good to throw away (or to be keptlin a dark place)... We want to achieve the same as Bartók and Kodály did in the music. I think, no such efforts have been made so far in the painting, and if we succeed, we shall be the first ones in this field. Yes, we have to take up the role pf pioneers and we feel the increased necessity of this because everybody in the Hungarian art looks back. We also loot back into the past but with a different aim: we want to gain strength and to save the values of the past (whatever is not destroyed yet) and to hand them down to the future. Unfortunately, today's folk art began to disappear as a consequence of the blissful influence of the town 'culture and civilisation'. We see in the villages a deliberate destruction of everything, that is old and 'old-fashioned' and 'no more agrees with modern times'." Seventy years after having noted down these thoughts, Lajos Vajda - if he would come to us - would notice with despair the increasingly destructive force of civilisation, the values ruffled and swept away by the globalisation, the way how traditions are irrevocably forgotten, and the desperate efforts to keep the traditions even as requisites. He would be however satisfied to see that his artistic program, which remained unaccomplished due to his early death, as well as the spirit of his art still survives in such Works of art, which are based on folk art motives and imbued with the spirit of folk art, briefly, in those products of modern art, which sublimate the elements of folk art. Sublimation is important: the intention and the attitude to elevate 14