45 was curated by newly admitted art historians, so actually members from all sides of the profession had a chance to introduce themselves. It was around this time that the Rottenbiller Street community space was renovated, thanks to the Budapest exchange program. Less successful was the fact that few curators contacted the studio with ideas for shows, and the membership was not active enough. Zs. Keserue: For me, particularly interesting were collective initiatives brought into being in the new operational form in the old Studio Gallery space on Képíró Street. These were collective exhibits, created from a perspective that was actually new for the Studio. Alongside the formerly month-long, overwhelmingly solo exhibits, the Gallery Committee (made up of members of the management) tried to allow for projects of experimental, dynamically constituted formations. I would also mention Gábor Kerekes’s Kamikaze project -- an example of an artist who is also a curator and capable of organizing the annual exhibit. Zs. László: In the period that I worked here, the main focus was not on the exhibits, or at least not in the traditional sense. I was even a bit nostalgic about that. When I was there, there were no very significant, large landmark exhibits that one tends to hear a lot about afterwards. But I think that Notes and Sketches was very successful and interesting, as was AMBPA’s daily changing exhibit within the Kamikaze project. The Gallery by Night exhibit organized around the theme of horror also represented a fresh perspective. It rekindled the Studio’s function that this theme, which was a bit more underground and subcultural, could appear in a very authentic way, despite the fact that the Studio was a well-established institution. The other defining experience for me was that there existed a kind of community life. I’m thinking of small things like the fact that on Képíró Street, János Fodor would often go and draw on the wall of the gallery’s bathroom. We used to refer to it as the gallery’s permanent exhibit. Á. Fenyvesi: Uglár Csaba’s exhibit, Social, at the Studio Gallery was a really big adventure. It was realized after almost a year and a half of prep time. It was exciting to see the concept of the exhibit evolve and rid itself of gags. It was interesting to see the paths the artist took, starting from an impressive but still baroque, over-decorated idea, and moving beyond it. The concept was finally ripe by the time of the opening, when the world financial crisis hit, and the themes of money and credit became even more relevant. That someone should arrange his own bank with banknotes he himself designed and issued, in a non-profit exhibi-
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