Abu Dhabi: A new exhibition in Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Gallery is now displaying works from the Central Bank of Hungary’s extensive collection.
Sheikh Rashed bin Ahmed Al Maktoum opened the Hungarian Contemporary Art Exhibitionin the presence of Ossama Naffa, Hungarian Ambassador to the UAE and Laszlo Toth, Hungarian foreign economy counsellor.
The exhibition will run until December 4, 2022, and it features a selection of contemporary artworks from the collection of the Central Bank of Hungary, the Magyar Nemzeti Bank (MNB). These pieces examine the connection between writing and image in Hungarian contemporary painting, titled Pictography: Calligraphies, Signs, Gestures, and Letter Images.
The exhibition also features 12 prominent Hungarian artists who are well-known and recognised on the Hungarian and international art scene. Many of them are leading figures of the Hungarian Neo Avant-Garde from the 1960s and 1970s, and others who are associated with Simon Hantaï›s surrealist calligraphic paintings, an artist whose work has been displayed at the Louvre Abu-Dhabi.
Modern art
The artworks in the exhibition build on the abstract tendencies of modern art, the different writing traditions of great cultures, and the need to express a sense of being. Their pictorial values link the personal and the universal, as well as new ways of creating spatiality, and the regaining of spirituality on the basis of archaic writing.
Highlighting the importance of calligraphy to Islamic culture, and in light of its value not only as a work of art but also a source of inspiration, Anna Bagyó, adviser to MNB Arts and Culture and coordinator of the project, suggested writing as a potential theme for the exhibition.
Animated films
The theme of the exhibition is extended by a selection of award-winning Hungarian animated films, most of which have been screened at prestigious international festivals.
The films will be presented in two sections, with 14 films for children and 32 films for adults.
