A major exhibition entitled Untold Stories has opened at MODEM, featuring an extraordinary selection from the art collections of twenty museums in the countryside.
The MODEM Centre for Modern and Contemporary Art’s exhibition Untold Stories seeks to show, through the art collections of museums in rural areas, the values that institutions outside Budapest acquired between 1989 and 2024. Opening in the 2nd floor exhibition space of MODEM, the selection attempts to provide a picture for professionals and the general public of how the collecting practices of rural museums have evolved in the decades following the fall of communism.
About the concept of the exhibition:
In recent years, MODEM has placed increasing emphasis on collaborations with various cultural, museum or educational institutions. In a way, the current exhibition is a new level of this approach, as MODEM, through the Association of Hungarian Rural Museums, has launched a call for proposals, which has resulted in the joint thinking and work of more than 20 rural museums.
“It was essential that the institutions themselves should define the image that the collection pieces they present represent, so we asked the institutions for a list of approximately 50 works of art, regardless of medium or genre. From these lists, we selected the works to be presented. We endeavored to ensure that our selection reflected the focus of the institution’s collection. The resulting selection also offers the opportunity to present, through the works on show, not only the mainstream of artistic discourse, but also diverse perspectives on local identity and cultural heritage. ” says Tamás Don, one of the curators of the exhibition.
The importance of the present exhibition is also enhanced by the fact that such a comprehensive overview of Hungarian art has rarely been seen before.
However, in addition to the representation of the collections, we focus at least as much on the background work of the collection and the art institutions themselves, which we present primarily through infographics. In addition, the animations in the exhibition space provide a brief summary of the research themes surrounding the exhibition, which include the collecting possibilities of rural museums and the role of the rural museum system in the cultural policy of the country.
Institutions:
- Déri Museum, Debrecen
- Dornyay Béla Museum, Salgótarján
- Damjanich János Museum, Szolnok
- Ferenczy Múzeumi Centrum, Szentendre, Szolnok János, Szolnok János Museum, Szentendre.
- Göcseji Museum, Zalaegerszeg, Szentendre Szentendre, Göcseji Museum, Zalaegerszeg, Hungary
- Gödöllő City Museum, Gödöllő
- Hatvany Lajos Museum, Hatvan
- Herman Ottó Museum – Miskolc Gallery, Miskolc
- József Attila Museum, Makó
- Institute of Contemporary Art – Dunaújváros (ICA-D)
- Kuny Domokos Museum, Tata
- Laczkó Dezső Museum, Veszprém
- MODEM, Debrecen
- Móra Ferenc Museum, Szeged
- Paks City Museum, Paks
- Rippl Rónai József Museum, Kaposvár
- Rómer Flóris Museum of Art and History, Győr
- Szent István Király Museum, Székesfehérvár
- Szombathely Gallery, Szombathely
- Tatabánya Museum, Tatabánya
- Ignác Tragor Museum, Vác
Curators: Bálint Ács, Tamás Don
