Female artists from the MNB contemporary collection
Location: Dubniczay Palace – House of Arts Veszprém (Veszprém, Vár utca 29.)
Opening of the exhibition: 15 April 2023 Saturday 15.00
The exhibition is open: 16 April – 11 June 2023
MNB Arts and Culture, the division of the National Bank of Hungary (Magyar Nemzeti Bank – MNB) managing the contemporary art collection, is opening the exhibition entitled Liquid Slices of Time, featuring the works of the female artists of the collection, on 15 April at the Dubniczay Palace in Veszprém, joining the events of the Veszprém-Balaton 2023 – European Capital of Culture. The title of the exhibition was borrowed from Orsolya Lia Vető’s series of the same title.
The theme of the exhibition is site-specific, as Veszprém is traditionally referred to as the city of the queens, due to the historical connection of the beatified Queen Gizella. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why the Veszprém-Balaton 2023 project pays special attention to women. This also coincides with the MNB Arts and Culture objectives, and we are proud that the MNB’s contemporary collection currently includes the works of 23 women and 48 men, which means that one third of the artists are female. This is a high percentage compared to statistics of Western institutions and the global art world, citing, for example, a 2019 study spanning ten years of the data of North American museums conducted by In Other Words in collaboration with artnet News, which found that female participation in exhibitions was only 14%.
The MNB collection, providing the material for the exhibition, is a contemporary art collection of around 1,200 pieces, mostly paintings, but also glass objects, textiles, installations and other mixed media works. Its mainstay is the work of the so-called neo-avant-garde generation of artists who emerged with experimental aspirations in the 1960s and 1970s and have since become renowned. The other strong pillar of the collection is the work of the youngest generation.
Liquid Slices of Time aims to show this duality and a kind of continuity through the work of female artists. The selection builds on specific connections: sometimes it is a teacher-student relationship (as in the case of Ilona Keserü and Zsófi Barabás), sometimes a young artist refers to an older master (for example in Judit Horváth Lóczi’s Hommage á Vera Molnár), or the bond is looser, as it is with collage as a working method (in the works of Margit Szilvitzky, Rita Koszorús and Eszter Anna Tóth).
Exhibiting artists:
Zsófi Barabás, Erika Fábián, Judit Horváth Lóczi, Ilona Keserü, Zsuzsanna Kóródi, Rita Koszorús, Bea Kusovszky, Dóra Maurer, Vera Molnár, Katja Pál, Gizella Rákóczy, Judit Reigl, Margit Szilvitzky, Anna Eszter Tóth, Orsolya Lia Vető
Curator:
Kinga Hamvai, art historian, Head of MNB Arts and Culture
