From the Archive of the Lectorate for Fine and Applied Arts: Documents on Public Art

One of the most important areas of activity of the Lectorate of Fine and Applied Arts, founded in 1963, was the coordination, judging, and authorisation of community-oriented public artworks for public spaces and public institutions, using the state budget allocated for this purpose. The Lectorate appointed the artist whose public artwork would be permanently installed. It was also responsible for judging the finished piece, determining the amount the artist was to be paid, and authorising the installation. In 1991 the capacity to authorise the instalment of public artworks was was transferred from the Lectorate to the municipal bodies. The Lectorate’s material on public art contains documents relating to the creation of individual pieces of art: minutes of meetings, copies of plans and designs, expert opinions, jury evaluations, official correspondence, contracts, and related official papers. The documents collected on each work are arranged into individual files by author and title. The archive of nearly 15,000 items is complemented by a closely related collection of photographs (mostly consisting of black and white enlargements) documenting the creation of each artwork. Beyond providing insight into the circumstances of the creation of these works of public art, research onthis source material of irreplaceable value also opens up new interpretations of György Aczél’s three T’s (“banned, tolerated, supported”).

/Dániel Lőrinczi/