art-e-conomy _ reader - marko stamenkovic

cases. Russia is such a specific case because of its lack of a democratic tradition,
because of Stalin’s terror. In reality we all live in a global and a local context at the
same time. If the Russian case is part of a global world, this means that the same
thing is, in different forms, going on almost everywhere. An American specialist in
Russian history has said that Russia is a very interesting country because it’s sick of
European diseases, though it is suffering them in a catastrophic way. So the Russian
case is catastrophic, but the disease is European.
MARINA SORBELLO: Thank you Viktor. We will probably have the possibility later to
ask more about Russia. I noticed you were a bit nostalgic about the socialist system.
Now I give the word to Zsolt Somlói, who is a collector and who may possibly have
another approach to the subject.
ZSOLT SOMLÓI: Thank you. What I’m going to talk about very briefly today is to
highlight some key points about the art market in Hungary over the last fifty years. I
will also talk for a few minutes about our collection. I will make this presentation in
three parts. One is 1945-1985, life behind the iron curtain. In communist Hungary,
there was an official policy and an official art. The communist government divided
art into three categories: forbidden, accepted and supported. There were people
who were very much in line with the official concept of Socialist Realism, and they
had support from the state; there were people who were kind of so an so, and there
were people who had no money, no exhibitions, and no support at all. So there was
no real art market at that time. Underground collectors could buy treasures even
for a bowl of soup. Collectors were primarily low budget intellectuals, librarians,
teachers, etc., because even on a primary school teacher’s salary, you could compile
a fantastic collection.
The period between 1985 until 1995 I would describe as influenced by the West.
After the fall of the iron curtain, the region became interesting and fashionable,
creating a phenomenon we might call “C art”. “C art” means that you are interesting
because you come from a certain region. For me, “C” doesn’t mean anything. I’ll
give you an example of a simple thing, how you drink and how you do your coffee. In
the Czech Republic, people drink filter coffee, in Poland they drink Turkish coffee, in
Hungary we drink Italian style espresso coffee, and Russia has the tea market. In the
same way you can talk about politics, history, language, religion and so forth. If these
countries described even in these simple terms have nothing in common, then how
can you talk about them in the same way? In these ten years, in Hungary, there was
the phenomenon of double pricing: one price for the locals and another one for the
foreigners. By the mid 90s, Hungary and the region had lost their curiosity.
I would describe the period after 1995 as the emergence of a local market. The
markets were open. New galleries opened. The oldest gallery in Budapest celebrates
its fifteenth anniversary this year. Fifteen years of constant work, and exhibitions. So
I think it’s not an emerging, it’s an established market, when someone can make
it for fifteen years. There are other galleries present at the international art fairs.
For example when Tony Cragg had an exhibition in Budapest, he sold three big art
pieces to Hungarian collectors. There is a new generation of collectors with a totally
different social-demographic background. They are bankers, entrepreneurs, CEOs
who are focused on their own generation and who are interested not just in painting
257