The MNB Arts and Culture division, which is responsible for the MNB’s contemporary collection, attaches great importance to organising interpretative exhibitions of the material from the MNB’s contemporary collection, both internationally and domestically.
The fine art collection of the Rómer Flóris Museum of Art and History in Győr offers a point of connection with the collection of the Central Bank, especially with regard to the three works of Szabados, Szirtes and Ujházi. The exhibition in Győr draws attention to three significant contemporary careers that, despite their familiarity, are rarely spotlighted individually, and this is the first time they have been shown together. Curators Emese Pápai and Tünde Sipos have sought to present all three works in a way that clearly highlights their intersections, their parallels and their differences.
Emese Pápai, art historian and chief museologist of the institution hosting the exhibition, drew attention to the intersections between the work of Szabados, Szirtes and Ujházi, mainly as graphic artists and as significant art educators. The artist Ujházi led workshops in Székesfehérvár, and the direct and experiential approach to art education of Árpád Szabados and János Szirtes is influential for younger generations. János Szirtes is one of the founders of the MOME’s media design department and is considered by student evaluations to be the alpha and omega of the department.
The three artists are also related in their approach to painting, all of them had a playfulness and pushed the boundaries of the panel painting. Peter Ujházi’s painted scenes are imaginatively sequential. János Szirtes also leaves his mark outside his canvases during his performative creative process in active movement. Árpád Szabados has transformed some of his canvases into modular elements, so that his compositions can be valid in multiple views.
“The trialogue between the three works is also a testimony to the way in which man’s elementary instinct to trace can be elevated to a higher level by capturing complex movements rather than primary signals. It is this movement of abandonment that is at the heart of the exhibition Line Stories, which seeks to draw attention to the playfully liberating power of art through the work of three artists.” – summarises the main message of the curatorial concept of the exhibition.