The collections of the Ferenczy Museum Center (FMC), which hold more than two million objects, tell stories that are both timeless and constantly changing. The exhibition does not seek to close off this vast material, but rather to open it up: it offers a subjective yet representative snapshot through which the 130-year-old, layered and diverse arc of art in Szentendre can be traced.
Styles, eras, personal connections
Starting from the modernist legacy of the Ferenczy family, we move through the plein air and constructivist traditions of the Old Artists’ Colony to the artists organized around Lajos Vajda and Dezső Korniss, who created their own unique vision from the intertwining of surrealism and folk art roots. From there, the journey continues to the stylistically and genre-diverse world of the New Artists’ Colony, then to the free spirit and Dadaist humor of the Lajos Vajda Studio and the creative community experiments of the Szentendre Graphic Workshop. The curators of the exhibition—Emőke Bodonyi, Zsuzsa Iberhalt, Zsuzsanna Kozák, Brigitta Muladi, and Noémi Szabó—set out to enable visitors to discover the extremely rich material of the FMC’s collections according to their own individuality and sensibilities, so that they would have the opportunity not only to observe, but also to form personal connections. For this reason, different types of chairs have been placed in each room, offering new and exciting perspectives.
Take a seat! Embrace art!
The chair—as a symbol of human presence, attention, or rest—can be comfortable or uncomfortable, unfamiliar or worn to a state of comfort. A place where someone sat before us, and which we will soon leave empty. We sit on chairs while working at our desks, eating lunch with our families, or leaning back with a good book. We travel sitting down, we sit in church and in the doctor’s waiting room. Seating is also an important part of the museum experience. In the words of surrealist painter Paul Klee: “To understand a picture, you need a chair. Why a chair? So that when your legs get tired, they don’t disturb your mind.” When we sit down in the special chairs placed among the works of art, new thoughts may arise as we look at the objects around us, and the story behind them may be rewritten. Thus, in the room displaying the art of the Ferenczy family, visitors are greeted by Károly Ferenczy’s painter’s chair, and in the explorer’s corridor, a time-traveling armchair. How do they change our experience? The iconic works and rarities unearthed from the depths of the storerooms, the unexpected encounters with objects, invite us to discover together how many different realities and perspectives are layered on top of each other in the history of art in Szentendre. As artist László feLugossy put it: “There are as many realities as you want.”