To: András Bozóki, Ministry of National Cultural Heritage
Bálint Magyar, Ministry of Education
Dear Ministers Bozóki and Magyar,
The operation of Artpool Art Research Center had come to face insurmountable difficulties by the second half of 2005. You might have been appraised of this situation from the press, the directors of Artpool and the Aid Concept they organised. Despite the fast aid granted to the institution by the Ministry of National Cultural Heritage, there is a continued threat of Artpool having to be closed down, and its archive materials, uniquely important from the perspective of Hungarian and international scientific and art research, to be boxed up for an unpredictable length of time.
We are well aware that the Hungarian system of scientific, educational and art institutions has been undergoing constant change since the change in the country’s political and economic system, and has been facing financial and organisational problems due to the cuts in state funding. We also know that you have been contacted by many other institutions like ourselves asking for help for their survival, since the cultural institutions (among others) have been hard hit by the restrictions that were necessitated by the urgency of reducing the country’s deficit – after its EU accession – in 2005. Artpool is most probably only one of many institutions in the same situation; however, we believe that the scope of its collections and the unique nature of its operation provide ample reason to allow us to call your attention to the loss that would result from the closing down of Artpool and the affect it would have in the scientific, educational and artistic spheres.
Artpool – in line with similar international trends – has been collecting and processing documents, artworks and the literature of underground art and culture after 1945, primarily focusing on cultural assets that were regarded during the socialist era – and are regarded even today – as belonging to the scope of thinking differently, understood in a broad sense; these materials were not collected by institutions financed by the state before the change in the political system (with the few honourable exceptions). It goes without saying that different ways of thinking are important for the organisation and creativity of any democratic and open society, besides it obviously being crucial in scientific and artistic experiments. Artpool’s archive is special in both a domestic and international context, with its collections and research activity encompassing the areas of fine art, music, literature, theatre, film, photography and media arts. The materials preserved here as well as the ongoing research and acquisition projects not only contribute to exploring and presenting to the general public a chapter of the past that was neglected for a long time, but they are also important for the innovative artists of the present.
Over the past 15 years, the staff at Artpool managed to create the conditions required for the operation of a public institution which is based on the above-described complex private collection of the founders and its continuous augmentation. The long-term concept of the institution’s operation has also been drawn up, including aspirations to constructively become integrated into the domestic and international system of institutions having participated in many research, educational and art projects. During this time the staff also placed Artpool’s archive materials at the disposal of researchers, artists and university students coming to the centre on a daily basis. Thanks to this work and the connections that had been built up thus far, the institution arrived at a stage where its operation should be made more efficient, this necessitating coherent programmes in respect to collecting, processing, research and education. In other words, Artpool found itself in a financially untenable situation when it had just become an integral part of cultural and scientific life. As the results produced by Artpool during its 15 years of legal operation are well known from the press, their detailed presentation is unnecessary, but let us highlight the fact that the information stored on Artpool’s website are used in secondary and tertiary education as essential source material, functioning as a kind of ‘manual’, which is confirmed by the lists of compulsory and recommended literatures published by educational institutions.
It can thus be concluded from the above that closing down Artpool Art Research Center would not only negatively affect but also deal a blow to the humanities and social sciences in general, including the areas of art history, literary history, musical science, media sciences, museum science, as well as research projects, publications and education in disciplines such as history and sociology, while also exerting a painful influence upon the cultivation and education of the arts.
In light of the above, we are respectfully asking you, Minister Bozóki and Magyar, to do all in your power to prevent the closing down of Artpool. We are asking you to ensure the continuous operation of the institution and support an operational and financing scheme that would guarantee its long-term existence.
Dr Béla Bacsó, associate professor, director of the Art Theory and Media Research Institute, ELTE University
Dr László Beke, art historian, director of the Research Institute of Art History of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, curatorial member of Artpool
István Dévényi, art historian, head of the Department of Contemporary Art, Hungarian National Gallery
Csilla E. Csorba, art historian, deputy director-general of the Petőfi Literary Museum
Dr Judit Geskó, art historian, head of the Department of Art in the 19th and 20th Centuries, Museum of Fine Arts
Dr Péter György, media researcher, head of the Media Programme, Humanities Faculty, ELTE University
Frigyes Kőnig, head of department, full professor, rector, Hungarian University of Fine Arts
Ernő Marosi, art historian, member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, vice-president of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Dóra Maurer, Kossuth Prize-holding fine artist, professor at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts, president of Artpool’s Supervisory Committee
Katalin Néray, art historian, director of Ludwig – Museum of Contemporary Art
Prof. Dr Péter Niedermüller, cultural anthropologist, leader of the modernity PhD-Cultural Science Doctoral Programme, Humanities faculty, Pécs University, professor at Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Institut für Europäische Ethnologie
Miklós Peternák, art historian, department head, full professor, head of the Intermedia Institute, Hungarian University of Fine Arts, director of C3 Centre for Culture and Communication
Edit Sasvári, art historian, deputy director of the Budapest History Museum Municipal Gallery – Kiscell Museum
Mihály Szegedy-Maszák, regular member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, department head, full professor, ELTE University, member of Academia Europea
Zsolt Szijártó, PhD, head of the Department of Communication and Media Science, Humanities Faculty, Pécs University
Endre Szkárosi, literary scholar, associate professor, Romance Philology Institute, Humanities Faculty, ELTE University, curatorial member of Artpool
Annamária Szőke, PhD, art historian, senior lecturer, Art History Institute, Humanities Faculty, ELTE University, president of the curatorium of Artpool
László Szörényi, literary historian, director of the Institute of Literary History of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, head of the Comparative Literary Science Department, Szeged University
Ernő Tolvaly, painter, full professor, head of the Department of Painting, Institute of Visual Arts, Faculty of Music and Visual Arts, Pécs University
György Várkonyi, at historian, senior fellow at Janus Pannonius Museum
Anna Wessely, art historian, sociologist, head of the Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, ELTE University
András Wilheim, music historian, senior lecturer, Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music
(English translation: Krisztina Sarkady-Hart)