Short movie and outdoor exhibition presenting the enamel works of Pécs Workshop

acb Gallery presents its fifth online exhibition – with Katalin Keserü in the spotlight.

We went for a stroll around the Buda Arboretum with renowned art historian and holder of the Széchenyi Prize Katalin Keserü, and conversed about Ferenc Lantos and the works of enamel art on display in the park, the relationship of humans and nature, and the summer workshops at the enamel factory of Bonyhád.

Explored in the short film, the pieces temporarily on display in nature evoke the history of the work of Ferenc Lantos and the Pécs Workshop, characterised by dialogue with the constructed environment as well as nature, which acb Gallery has already digested a year and a half ago in the form of a comprehensive exhibition and a catalogue in collaboration with the Vasarely Museum. In the scope of the residencies led fifty years ago by Ferenc Lantos at the enamel factory, invited artists could realize their own creative ideas with the technique of applying industrial grade enamel paint onto iron sheets, fired at high temperatures using the factory’s infrastructure. The artists’ individual (mainly abstract geometric and serial) works were altogether embedded in the visual program associated with Lantos, the mission of which was the hybridization of creative roles (architects, scientists, workers, artists) and types of creation (fine art, industrial design). The concept of a creative process on the scale of society, tuned to factory-level capacities, with public art and integrated urban planning in mind, can also be interpreted from the perspective of such living traditions and art-historical antecedents as the Bauhaus school, with natives of Pécs amongst its organisers, László Moholy-Nagy’s enamel works, and the views and praxes of the Pécs-born Victor Vasarely or György Kepes. Additionally, the enamel workshop of Bonyhád also serves as a snapshot of the Hungarian cultural political approach to art, modernism and local traditions, and a token of the bloom of the Pécs Workshop’s avant-garde, globally unique land art.

Ferenc Lantos and the Pécs Workshop exhibited enamel works as wall cladding decoration indoors, and often outdoors in nature. This arose partly from the nature-centred work of Lantos the painter, and partly from his affinity for social spaces designed in high taste. As Lantos’ monographer and a witness to the historically significant artistic implementation and outdoor display of enamels, not least a native of Pécs, Katalin Keserü perambulated the Buda Arboretum in our company, as the park had become a temporary home for the enamel artworks in acb Gallery’s collection.

Comprising acb Gallery’s fifth online show, the film documenting this exploration addresses the role of artworks in society as well as their accessibility, while urging to reconsider our relationship with our built and natural environment. 

Special thanks to Katalin Keserü.