[spectre]Fwd: fatal strike for hungarian art

[Maja & Reuben Fowkes]

The lunatics have taken over the asylum

Hard to believe at first, but it seems to be true 
that Hungary's second most important art space, 
the Mžcsarnok/Kunsthalle, will find itself from 
1st January 2013 under the ownership and control 
of an ultra conservative arts organisation, the 
Hungarian Artistic Academy or MMA, which has 
stealthily been installed as the leading 
authority for Hungarian art, with its preeminent 
position written in to the new constitution or 
Basic Law and bolstered by a huge grant from the 
government. This coup de force has triggered 
protest letters and petitions from both private 
gallerists and the Hungarian branch of AICA, who 
warn that the move will undo decades of progress 
towards the integration of Hungarian contemporary 
art within international circuits.

The political and aesthetic views of the 
president of the MMA, whose name is Fekete and 
often also dresses in black, are well symbolised 
by the fact that he earlier criticised the 
director of the Mžcsarnok for his show Mi a 
Magyar?/What is Hungarian? for 'blaspheming' the 
Hungarian nation, which was ironic considering 
that most art critics had rightly recognised the 
exhibition as basically in line with the 
government's nationalist cultural agenda and that 
Gábor Gulyás had himself been directly appointed 
to the position by the government, overriding the 
usual procedures and against the wishes of 
progressives in the art world. Cue 
'fellow-traveller' GG's resignation, and the 
penny finally drops that only mind-blowing 
ultra-traditionalist tendencies are welcome in 
the shrinking world of state-sponsored Hungarian 
art.

http://beyondeast.wordpress.com/2012/11/27/the-lunatics-have-taken-over-the-asylum/