New Contemporary Gipsy Gallery in Budapest

By: Dora Gyarmathy, Hungarian Radio

---

In the last decades the gipsy fine art was categorized as naive art, the gipsy culture as folk or popular culture but not as part of contemporary art. The aim of the new gallery is setting the gipsy art in the centre of interest from the periphery and present this art as an important part of contemporary culture. In this way the new gallery could help the positive evaluation of gipsy art and strengthen the gipsy society.

In the city centre of Budapest (V., Tüköry utca 5.) a 180 m2 big room is rented by the Ministry of Culture for this purpose. The room, which had been an office earlier, will be renovated and provided all the equipments which are needed by the Ministry. According to the plans of the Ministry all of the equipments and the infrastructural background of the gallery would be modern and professional in order to provide the institutional background for the gipsy art. The functioning budget will be financed by the Ministry as well through the Hungarian Institute of Culture.

Nowadays there isn’t any permanent exhibition which presents the gipsy art in Hungary so the new gallery has to be prepared for the comprehensive representation of the gipsy culture. One of the main tasks of the gallery is to show those exhibits which had been collected in different museums e.g. in the Museum of Folklore, Naive Museum in Kecskemét, Hungarian National Gallery, Hungarian Institute of Culture, Historical Museum in Nógrád etc. In the conception of the temporary exhibitions the presentation of European analogies and the social projects are important elements. So many films, photos and audios have been recorded about the gipsy art that’s why the new gallery is considering to collect all of these materials, process it and produce a rich multimedia collection. In this way the gallery could be a database of gipsy fine art in Hungary and help the researchers as well.

The gallery has a chance to involve the communities from the surrounding area with handicraft workshops and also give an opportunity to relieve students and other visitors from their prejudices. Thus the gallery won’t be only an exhibition place but a community house as well. Organization of conferences and courses is also planned in the gallery.

According to the plans the Contemporary Gipsy Gallery is open from June.

www.kultura.hu