Introduction

Since 2014 the Hungarian Academy of Arts has provided the opportunity for the annual organisation of the National Salon, a large-scale exhibition series aimed at showcasing the achievements in the contemporary Hungarian visual arts and presenting the comprehensive trends of these areas.

The salon exhibitions with the themes of architecture, fine art, photography, applied arts and folk art following each other in a fve-year cycle have been increasingly recognised by the most important domestic exhibitions devoted to the above areas of art, each gathering together numerous trends and aspirations, displaying outstanding works by several hundred artists at one time for the profession and the lay general public alike. The salon exhibitions of the frst fve-year cycle were retrospective in nature, seeking to bridge gaps, while also satisfying the need for an extensive overview of the more distant past. Now, in the second cycle, our attention is directed mainly at the latest works of the past fve years.

Each year the Kunsthalle Budapest calls upon a curator – a renowned expert of the area of art in focus – to develop the concept, content and installation design of the given salon exhibition. In recent years the Hungarian Academy of Art and the Kunsthalle Budapest have followed the practice of inviting different curators and consultants every year and for each salon, enabling new ideas and contexts to unfold. Another principle adopted by these institutions was not to limit the scope of curators to academicians, thus allowing other experts of the themed area of art to play a part and contribuThe their knowledge and experience. The Hungarian Academy of Art formulated ’merely’ one expectation: for the organisers of the salons to embrace diversity and openness, including innovative initiatives that start out from tradition, reflect our present and mark out future directions. The exhibitions and accompanying events realised each year are thus able to provide an expansive cross-section, a colourful and rich tableau, and the imprint of the art of our times.

The 2nd National Salon of Folk Art, titled SoulForms, masterfully reflects the above concept through promoting interaction between reinvented ancient motifs and artisan traditions, as well as knacks of the trade that have been passed down for generations, collective knowledge and skills as well as creative and original solutions. Visitors will be able to witness many values: the harmony between everyday functionality and artistic expression, the fusion of material and soul, the symbiosis between masters of extraordinary talent and their workshops ennobled into close circles of pupils, as well as the wisdom of appreciating the created world and its ever-more depleted natural resources.

Space was also assigned at the exhibition to those branches of art that are diversely intertwined with folk art but cannot be included in the catalogue: short flms and musical motifs as well as the ’audiovisual dimension’, to use a word with a somewhat alien ring to it in our context, thus proving how even such phrases are not inconceivably removed from living folk art.

There is an of-quoted line by Áron Tamási, a well-known Hungarian writer native to Transylvania, which many of us certainly believe to be true: “we are in this world to feel at home in it somewhere”. We can adopt words from foreign languages, travel to unchartered territories and distant lands or we can experiment with the astounding innovations of cutting edge technology, yet amidst the prospects of globalisation, the rapid changes of modernity and the unusual new concepts introduced by the third millennium, our hearts fll with “the great and universal warmth”, and our souls fnd “the peace of happy times” if, from time to time, we can rediscover the archetypal, familiar and cosy: the treasures of our closer communities that have been passed down for generations.

The public body, institutions and various initiatives of the Hungarian Academy of Arts – including the National Salon exhibition series – seek to strengthen this accommodating feeling of cosiness on the contemporary Hungarian cultural and artistic scene, hoping to bring joy to the artists, the performers and the audience sensitive to beauty.

Unfortunately, certain aspects that overshadowed the organisation of this year’s salon cannot be lef unsaid either. The war waged at our doorstep, the ongoing energy crisis hitting Europe and having grown into a global problem, as well as the current inflation of a historic scale created by economic difculties forced the Hungarian Academy of Arts to take extraordinary austerity measures. In addition to the shortened opening hours and the need to reorganise our exhibitions, we had no choice but to mount the salon in fewer halls and with a restricted budget compared to previous years. Taking this into account, the wealth realised at this year’s exhibition despiThe the difculties is especially worthy of note.

On behalf of the Hungarian Academy of Arts, I want to express my gratitude to those who contributed to the implementation of the 2nd National Salon of Folk Art, its chief curators, assistant curators and consulting experts, as well as the Kunsthalle’s management and dedicated team, who did a fantastic job even amidst the obstacles. Let me also thank the excellent artists, presenting their works in the halls and at the accompanying events, who preserve and re-invent the treasures we all share.

Gábor Richly PhD

Secretary-general of the Hungarian Academy of Arts