Declaration by (AICA)

Declaration by the Hungarian Section of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) regarding the government decision on the Hungarian Academy of Arts

In November 2012, the Hungarian State, in a government decision, relinquished ownership of the building of Műcsarnok/Kunsthalle Budapest. Furthermore, it provided the Hungarian Academy of Arts (Magyar Művészeti Akadémia, MMA) with the right to concur on artistic and thematic matters concerning the operation of Műcsarnok. With this action, the government goes against all endeavours of recent decades to integrally connect the Hungarian contemporary art scene and its institutional system with the international art world. Through this step, the government continues the allocation of the cultural institution system, thereby gradually marginalizing culture itself. With this decision, the government provides authorization for ideological regulation to an organization that it cannot control.

The Hungarian Academy of Arts was established in 1992 by national-conservative artists as a kind of counter-organization in opposition to the art association forming within the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.The Academy has not established its professional, wide-scale legitimacy since; it has no appreciable scientific or professional program. It is an ideological organization that has ensured the present government of its loyalty on a number of occasions. In 2011, the government registered the MMA as a public body in the new Constitution. It was already apparent in the text of the new Fundamental Law of Hungary: the government may invest the MMA with full power with regard to the sphere of culture. The present government decision also points in this direction.
With its current decision, the government turns back the clock on Műcsarnok: it resurrects structures that were associated with the most backward ideas in the history of Hungarian art. As per the decision of the government, the expression “Műcsarnok art” – the notion all progressive Hungarian artists and art groups fought against in the first half of the twentieth century – may once again gain validity. The return of Salon art, the “strengthening of the culturally strategic role of the MMA,” the handing over f the cultural institution system and that of the still-functioning elements of cultural financing are unacceptable.

Budapest, 22 November 2012