Syndicate: inter/media/art exhibition Ernst Museum, Budapest

["Zsuzsa Megyesi" <zsmegyesi@mucsarnok.hu>]

EXHIBITION:

Műcsarnok/Kunsthalle Budapest and the Intermedia Department of the Hungarian Academy of Finre Arts

Inter/Media/Art
sweet time* sign planting* intermedia model* media museum* future gather 

opening reception 7pm Thursday, June 4, 1998, Ernst Múzeum
opening remarks by Janwillem Schrofer, Director of the Rijksakademie van beelden kunste
curated by Miklós Peternák, Zsuzsa Megyesi
open till 28 June, 1998 daily from 10 am to 6pm except Mondays

Ernst Múzeum, Budapest VI., Nagymező u. 8. Tel 341 4355

http://www.intermedia.c3.hu
e-mail: info@intermedia.c3.hu

Participating Artists:

József A. Ádám, Gábor Bakos, Áron Balázs, Maria Chilf, Attila Csörgő, Róza El-Hassan, Attila Erdődy József, Éva Gyarmati, Gábor Győrfy, Katalin Haász, Eszter Hajós, András Kapitány, Erzsébet Kenedi, Andrea Kirkovics, Éva Emese Kiss, Szabolcs Kis-Pál, Tamás Komoróczky, Jenő Lévay, Róbert Langh, Dóra Maurer, Imre Nagy, Kriszta Nagy, Orsolya Nyitrai, László L. Révész, Andrea Schneemeier, Szilvia Seres, Tamás St.Auby, János Sugár,  Ágnes Szabó, Zoltán Szegedy-Maszák, Gábor Tálosi, József Tillmann, Bea Veszely, András Wolsky

                                              *   *   *

	Beauty is tied to a static conception of time, thus creating islands in the irreversible flow of time. Time based arts enrich the space of these islands with their own temporality, giving substance to the visitors temporary "Aufhebung" from the inexorable process.

Intermedial activities involve the research of borderlands, the constant concretization of the contemporary, the analysis of the interrelations between the spheres of science, technique, and of the gesture of recognition as an artitistic act based on knowledge, yet reachable in a sensous form.

The present exhibition is the first comprehensive public introduction where almost all artists are presented, who at some time during the eight-year-long existence of the department were students or teachers (unless it was technical impossible). In this show almost fifty artists will be present, most of them being constant exhibitors in Hungarian and foreign galleries. Our exhibition also gives a short history of intermedial activities, thus foreign artists and theoreticians, who from time to time accepted our invitations will virtually be present.

A peculiar fact of the Hungarian change of regime was that although the category of politically forbidden art disappeared, it becamer more and more obvious that democracy in the fine arts can lead to the dictatorship of bad taste. Quality is not based on selection, a good piece of art is not selected by the majority. A special situation in this sensitive sphere is developed upon every new (even indirect) regulation, such as the appearance of market based economy, the rearrangement of prestige values and of hierarchy, new technical and communicational trends, changing financial conditions and patronage. Since 1990 all this has been present in Hungary.

The establishment of the department was unquestionably due to the politcal changes of the time, which in a local colour was present in all the at that time the only university-level fine art institutions, its peculiarity being - that it so-called "came from bottom " - was initiated by the students. The students won the right to construct a new structure, to transform the outdated and (opposed to the common belief) strongly political conscious training. Our purpose here is not to comment on the 9 -year-long first radical, later much slower rearrangement, but to list the concrete facts.

In 1990 the Magyar Képzőművészeti Főiskola (Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts) invited more than a dozen new teachers, to which in the next few years at least as many joined and the establishment of two new university branches were proposed. The concept of these were born in 1990, but only one of them, the intermedial branch was accepted in 1993 as the final phase of a long bureaucrtic process. Thus the first students accepted to our department started their five-year-long training in the school year 1993-94, and will receive their diploma this year. This fact has probably played some part in the timing of the current exhibition.

The Intermedia Department and branch (though not officially, but on practicing level) was functional from the start in such a way that a whole curriculum was defined which enabled students to attend practice- and lecture-like courses, or even make intermedial studies in their specialized field. In  other words, students from other departments of the academy could in  school year 1990-91 receive special training in the intermedial studies. This is why the curious symptom that in the year of the official starting of the department there were already "finishing" (complementary) intermedial studies students and in the following year the first Intermedia Diploma-Exhibition was opened.

The present training and the participants of former public programmes shared commitment which proclaims the priority of quality orientated works opposed to other personal interest, that is characterized by critical analysis of current prosperity rather its exploitation, the existential acceptance of essential permanence under the changing currents.

The exhibition also gives us a chance to thank all our sponsors who recognizing the characteristics of the work mentioned above helped make the consistent building possible.

Our presentation in the Ernst Múzeum is a mosaic of many unconfusable and recognizable personal careers brought together by a common-view, which demonstrates the transformation of the passed time into a present synopsis.

                                                     
Miklós Peternák
Head of the Intermedia Department
Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts