Autonomy of Colour and Form – Exhibition Presenting the Pécs School Opens at HAB

The new temporary exhibition at Hungarian Art & Business (HAB) presents the artistic movement known as the Pécs School. Entitled SzínPhonia.

The new temporary exhibition at Hungarian Art & Business (HAB) presents the artistic movement known as the Pécs School. Entitled SzínPhonia. The Pécs School. 30 Years of the Faculty of Music and Visual Arts, the exhibition examines, through creative connections spanning several generations and linked to Pécs and the intellectual milieu of the Faculty of Music and Visual Arts of the University of Pécs, an artistic way of thinking that draws on traditions while at the same time responding to the challenges of the present. Based on the curatorial concept of Délia Vékony and József Bullás, the exhibition can be seen at the art centre on Andrássy Avenue between 11 September and 15 November.

Despite the official socialist cultural policy, Pécs had already become one of the centres of Hungarian and Central European contemporary art by the 1960s. The city’s cultural life was shaped by the interaction of music, dance, theatre, literature and the visual arts, as well as by an avant-garde and experimental approach. In the visual arts, Ferenc Martyn played a decisive role, followed by his students, including Ferenc Lantos and Ilona Keserü. The progressive artistic movement of the Pécs Workshop developed in connection with the activities of Ferenc Lantos, while Ilona Keserü’s defining painterly ars poetica remains prominent to this day. The foundations of sculpture can be linked to the names of István Bencsik and Sándor Rétfalvi.

The exhibition interprets the Pécs School not as a closed, stylistically homogeneous category, but as a dynamic network of relationships between artists, masters and students, as well as parallel oeuvres. One important point of intersection is the Faculty of Music and Visual Arts of the University of Pécs, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year and which, since its foundation in 1996, has developed from the artistic traditions of Pécs into one of the country’s leading higher-education workshops with an interdisciplinary artistic approach.

“SzínPhonia refers to the resonance that developed between the various branches of art and generations of artists in Pécs. The Faculty of Music and Visual Arts is present as a defining location and workshop in the formation of the Pécs School movement, and creates an opportunity to define a diverse artistic practice closely intertwined with pedagogical activity,” emphasised the exhibition’s two curators, art historian Délia Vékony and visual artist József Bullás, lecturers at the Faculty of Music and Visual Arts of the University of Pécs.

At the centre of the exhibition are the visual characteristics of the Pécs School, namely the autonomy of colour and form, abstraction and geometric thinking, while through the legacy of the Pécs Workshop, conceptual art, photography, performativity and land art also appear. Alongside the dominance of abstraction – particularly in the works of the younger, ultra-contemporary generation – figuration is becoming increasingly prominent, while in sculpture, in dialogue with figurativism, an approach centred on materials is combined with social sensitivity and specific historical references.

The selection features works by 32 artists, including works by such prominent artists as Ilona Keserü, Ferenc Lantos, István Bencsik, Sándor Rétfalvi and Sándor Pinczehelyi – as well as Ferenc Martyn, who significantly shaped the spirit of the Pécs School, and the kindred spirit Victor Vasarely.

“An important professional objective of HAB is to present defining artists and artistic milieus of Hungarian contemporary art not in isolation, but embedded in historical and intellectual contexts. The exhibition on the Pécs School provides an opportunity for this, while also showing how the artistic questions raised by earlier generations are inherited and transformed in the present,” highlighted Anna Olajos, artistic director of HAB.

The HAB exhibition, operated with the support of the MBH Bank Art Foundation, welcomes visitors between 11 September and 15 November, and the art centre is also preparing various accompanying programmes and professional guided tours in connection with the exhibition.

The exhibition will be complemented by further exhibitions, lectures and concerts in Budapest on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Faculty of Music and Visual Arts of the University of Pécs, which further nuance and extend the central material presented at HAB.