magyar

Műcsarnok integral 1998-2005-2012

Topical Artpool Letter

Miklós Erdély passed away in 1986 (26 years ago). It would have been more than surprising if (21 years ago) his oeuvre catalogue, planned to be published for his first memorial exhibition in Székesfehérvár in 1991, had actually been completed. Yet, in the euphoria of the changes of 1989 we dreamt about all sorts of unusual things; for example that Artpool, illegal at the time, would become a legal institution. Fortunately, the latter became reality soon enough, in 1992, and given the new circumstances, Artpool Art Research Centre was established in Budapest, undertaking, among many other projects, the task of making the oeuvre of Miklós Erdély available for research.

In 1994 Artpool set itself the goal of implementing the aforementioned task: in brief, the project included a thematic lecture series titled "Self-assembling afternoons" and getting the manuscripts of the oeuvre catalogue ready for future publication, the date of which was uncertain. Regrettably, the manuscript was not completed but the efforts were not in vain since it created the opportunity to make a part of the oeuvre ready for research.

The internet was more widely available from 1995 onwards, so Artpool was among the first to join the network. In light of the above, included among the first webpages were those documents by and about Miklós Erdély already known from Artpool’s previous publications.

The 1998 Miklós Erdély oeuvre exhibition in the Műcsarnok would have been the most fitting occasion to publish the oeuvre catalogue, but it unfortunately did not happen, despite the fact that László Beke, the director-general of Műcsarnok at the time as well as a member of the curatorium of the Miklós Erdély Foundation, had ample reason to support the cause.

We established Miklós Erdély’s (ME) ’spiritual/intellectual birthday’, i.e. the first "Camilla Day", in connection with István Hajdu’s book presentation within the framework of Artpool’s 1999 "Context" research programme. The date of the presentation (28 December) and the volume’s 1998 study about Miklós Erdély conjured up Miklós Erdély’s spiritual/intellectual potential as a chance event or a coincidence – a semantic ensemble, a mem complex, or a self-assembling/holonic system.

The publication of the Erdély oeuvre was uncertain even in 2004, i.e. six years after the Erdély oeuvre exhibition. It was then that I decided to look into what happened in relation to Erdély in the ten years after 1994, declared by Artpool as the Miklós Erdély research year. A result of this was a summary chronology titled „ME-mories of reMEmbering” as part of the Camilla Day event titled "EM-rizoma".

At the focus of the "EM-rizoma" project was the idea that we can answer the question “What is the artistic counterpart of the inculturation of faith?” based on a religious model. The following words by John Paul II clearly express the importance of the inculturation of faith: “[…] Faith that does not become culture is not wholly embraced, fully thought out, or faithfully lived.”

In the following year, in 2005, after extensive preparation and three people’s work for three months, the website of Miklós Erdély’s 1998 oeuvre exhibition in the Műcsarnok was completed for the last Camilla Day. The website used Artpool’s already existing webpages about Miklós Erdély, László Lugosi Lugó’s interior photographs of the show, as well as the exhibition texts and other documents placed at our disposal by Annamária Szőke, the curator of the Miklós Erdély oeuvre exhibition as well as the curatorial member of the Miklós Erdély Foundation (EMA) and the Artpool Foundation. Partly filling the gap created by the still unpublished Miklós Erdély monograph and oeuvre catalogue, this website could have contributed to the greater online researchability of Miklós Erdély’s oeuvre.

The theme of the last Camilla Day was planned to be "virtual ME-morial house", i.e. the presentation of the website based on the Miklós Erdély oeuvre exhibition in the Műcsarnok.
The title of the event was „InDiGo CluB type of CAsE – to promote a fully researchable Miklós Erdély oeuvre".
The host of the event was Péter Fuchs, representing the latest generation. His main question was: Do the oeuvre, intellectual/spiritual approach and works of Miklós Erdély stand their ground even today? If so, why? If not, why?

This introductory question might sound provocative but we hoped that it would trigger a real discussion. Unfortunately, it did not. Those who the question was mainly aimed at – Annamária Szőke and the members of EMA: László Beke, Dániel Erdély and Miklós Peternák –took a 180 degree turn and with their email written on 28 December 2005, i.e. the day of the planned launch of the website, they prohibited the online presentation of the Miklós Erdély oeuvre exhibition in the Műcsarnok. This situation has not changed for seven (7) years.

Now that the Hungarian Academy of Arts, with György Fekete as its president, will "occupy" the Műcsarnok, I again counted the years that passed since Miklós Erdély’s oeuvre exhibition in the Műcsarnok was prohibited on Artpool’s online pages, and I also looked at what has happened since then in regard to the publication of the Erdély oeuvre catalogue that was often mentioned in connection with the website too – Nothing!

"Seven years have passed and during this time everything went to ruin since the Erdély oeuvre is not known," I wrote to Dani Erdély a few weeks ago and asked him (on behalf of another posterity) to write a letter personally addressed to me, in which he would request that I make the Miklós Erdély oeuvre exhibition in the Műcsarnok accessible on Artpool’s website based on our mutual and/or shared interest.
"As far as I am concerned, anything goes that is legal, professional and competent,” he replied.
You know, the problem is that there is too much envy and it is disguised by the pretexts of ’professionalism’ and ’concerns’."

I have decided to publish a reduced version of the 2005 website of the Miklós Erdély oeuvre exhibition, which would only include the interior photographs of the show but would not include the explanatory texts that were used at the exhibition, on the occasion of the Camilla Day on 28 December 2012. It is more than nothing!

The concept of "envy" had not been on my mind for a long time, so I looked it up on the internet, as I often do. I found out a lot about this sin and/or illness, so I compiled a small web page about my little research, which can already be accessed as a supplement for this year’s Camilla Day in the Műcsarnok.

Coincidence – László Beke would say –, since a conference titled Beware, Műcsarnok will be held in the Műcsarnok exactly on Camilla Day, on 28 December 2012, with the participation of the former director-generals of the Műcsarnok, the former ministers of culture, theoreticians and artists. Art historian and former director-general of the Műcsarnok, László Beke will not attend.

Camilla Day, 28 December 2012                                     György Galántai

P.S.: Do not be afraid of online appearance

... the fear of copyright owners that their proceeds will decrease as a result of free online appearances is basically unfounded. A good example is Imre Kertész’s noble-winning novel, titled Fateless: the digital version of his book is available online, and tens of thousands have downloaded it, still, the paper-based book is also selling really well; since receiving the Noble Prize, the number of copies sold has exceeded a quarter of a million.