MAMŰ Matrix group exhibition

Visiting period: 14th of May – 5th of July 2025

Curators: István Zakariás and Apor Ferencz S.

Opening: The exhibition was officially opened by Beáta Bordás PhD, coordinator of the Transylvanian Art Center, Eszter Túros, art historian and István Zakariás, president of the MAMŰ Society on the 14th of May 2025 at 6 p.m.

This group exhibition offers a subjective overview of the MAMŰ Society’s approach, current trends, and the creative challenges that the artists are facing. The aim of the current exhibition is not to provide a comprehensive overview of the work of MAMŰ’s entire membership, rather to offer insight into the presence of key visual art genres, the diversity of mediums, and the breadth of professional approaches.

The activity of the MAMŰ Society, with a history of almost half a century, is a significant and defining chapter in the history of Hungarian fine art. It marks an intellectual community whose creators are united and driven primarily by personal ties, friendships, a need for modernity, an internalization of playing an active role in contemporary artistic endeavors, at the same time by a common ideology and way of thinking that is difficult to define, yet is viscerally obvious. The antecedent of the MAMŰ Society was an artistic community called in Hungarian Marosvásárhelyi Műhely (MAMŰ) meaning ’Workshop of Târgu Mureș’, which activated in Târgu Mureș at the end of the 1970s. The members of this community were marked by a strong attachment to European artistic traditions and a multitude of ways of self-definition through artistic traditions, at the same time, various manifestations of distancing from and opposing to classical modes of expression can be traced, as well as experimental gestures of searching for artistic language that constantly questions the essence of art.

The art society established in Budaörs (Hungary) in 1991 under the name ’MA(születő) MŰ(vek)’ – MAMŰ – (i.e. works being born in the present) is, beyond the identity of the name, connected to the aforementioned grouping in that among the founding members we find quite a few artists who have since moved to Hungary and who were active members of the ’Workshop of Târgu Mureș’ in the late seventies. The MAMŰ Society also has a significant Western European membership, mostly consisting of visual artists who emigrated from Romania to the freer world during the communist era. A part of the membership is made up of a group of artists born in Hungary. Since 1994, the organization has continuously operated an exhibition space in Budapest, the MAMŰ Gallery, which is also its headquarters.

From the MAMŰ Society, which currently has more than 200 members, the curators of the exhibition selected the works of 43 artists, mainly of Transylvanian origin or affiliation, with the aim of presenting a matrix and its different dimensions that can provide a current professional cross-section of MAMŰ members. The exhibition proportionally includes representatives of different generations, from the founders to younger members. The resulting network, presenting itself as a community of artists of equal status, marks a number of points of contact and intersection.

The exhibition material is accompanied by a trilingual catalogue with forewords by István Zakariás and Eszter Túros.

Exhibiting artists: Malvina ANTAL, Csilla BABINSZKY, Imre BERZE, Vince BOCSKAY, Anikó BODOR, Imre BUKTA, Árpád DARADICS, Sándor DÓRÓ, Károly ELEKES, Gábor ERDÉLYI, István ERŐSS, Zoltán FERENCZ, Apor FERENCZ S., Andrea Katalin GULYÁS, Sándor GYŐRFFY, Levente HERMAN, Levente HORVÁTH, György JOVIÁN, Zsolt KOROKNAI, Kund KOPACZ, Zsigmond LUCZA, Áron Zsolt MAJOROS, István MAKKAI, Éva MAYER, Árpád NAGY Pika, László OCSKAY (Doky), Péter PÁL, Hunor PETŐ, Attila POKORNY, Csaba SÁNTA, Zoltán SEBESTYÉN, István STARK, Péter STEFANOVITS (Stefa), Ábel SZABÓ, Sándor SZÁSZ, Csongor SZIGETI G, László SZOTYORY, József SZURCSIK, József TASNÁDI, László UJVÁROSSY, Gusztáv ÜTŐ, Ottó VINCZE, István ZAKARIÁS

Organizers: Sfântu Gheorghe City Hall, Transylvanian Art Centre Association, MAMŰ Society

Sponsor: Hungarian Government – State Secretary for National Policy, Bethlen Gábor Fund, National Cultural Fund of Hungary, László Ocskay (Doky)