The first time the Hungarian public discovered Vasarely's name was at a small exhibition entitled Estampes et dessins français modernes, featuring works from Árpád Mezei's collection, held at the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts in 1968. At the time, the arts were strictly controlled by state cultural policy, which encouraged socialist realism and rejected all forms of non-figuration. This is why the Hungarian-born artist would have felt honored if one of his works had been included in the exhibition, despite the official ban. Vasarely was keen that the Op Art movement he represented should become more widely known and appreciated in his own country. That same year, he donated a huge collection of 160 works of art to the Hungarian nation, which were shared between the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts and the Janus Pannonius Museum in Pécs. In subsequent years, he donated a further 26 pieces from his own collection of works by some of the most important exponents of international geometric abstraction to both institutions. Thanks to his generosity, Hungarians now have the opportunity to see and study original examples of the latest trends in abstract art. In 1969, Vasarely's formidable political contacts enabled him to obtain permission from the Hungarian government to hold a solo exhibition in Budapest. This exhibition, the most important of his career, was held at the Műcsarnok (Art Hall) and attracted 150,000 visitors in just a few weeks.
Vasarely returned to the same venue the following year, as part of an exhibition entitled Twentieth-Century Hungarian Artists Abroad; following this event, he donated three large and important oil paintings to the Museum of Fine Arts. In 1971, for the first time since his childhood, he travelled to his native Pécs, where he negotiated with the municipal authorities the creation of a permanent exhibition of his own works and those of the artists in his "circle of friends". The deed of foundation for the Vasarely Museum in Pécs was signed in 1973, and three years later, when the artist was in his seventies, the museum was inaugurated, at the same time as his Vasarely Foundation in Aix-en-Provence. Thanks to his continuous donations, until 1982, the Pécs museum collection grew to almost 400 works.
Ten years later, he conceived the idea of the Vasarely Museum in Budapest, which, unlike the one in Pécs but following the example of those in Aix-en-Provence and Gordes (the latter having opened in 1970), would function as a foundation and art center. On September 23, 1981, he signed his first deed of gift concerning his "inalienable" donation to Budapest, the nation's capital. The first exhibition of the artist's gifts was temporarily installed at the Museum of Fine Arts in the spring of 1983, then toured the country's cities. In 1986, the artist consolidated his donation with two further deeds and designated the south-east wing of the Baroque Zichy Palace in Óbuda as the site of the future museum. (The choice of location was probably inspired in part by the fact that in 1976, the other wing of the palace had been transformed into a memorial museum dedicated to Lajos Kassák, a leading figure of the Hungarian avant-garde and one of Vasarely's idols). According to the authorization issued by the Ministry in 1987, the Vasarely Museum will operate as "a subsidiary of the Fine Arts Museum". Plans for the permanent exhibition were drawn up by Vasarely himself, and the museum was inaugurated on May 8, 1987 at a ceremony attended by the artist.
Since then, the institution has focused its activities on preserving and disseminating the work of Victor Vasarely and conducting related scientific research. Since its creation, it has hosted temporary exhibitions of works by representatives of movements closely related to Vasarely's art, including thematic exhibitions by the Open Structure Art Society, founded in 2007 with the aim of maintaining the long-standing traditions of Hungarian constructivist, abstract geometric, concrete and kinetic art.
The idea of traveling a collection to be exhibited in another part of the world is closely linked to Vasarely's general approach, his efforts to find democratic art forms and his belief in the universal nature of visual images. He put his democratic principles into practice in the way he created his kinetic artworks, which he wanted to be accessible to all. He created what he called his "multiples" with the express aim of ensuring that the pictorial aesthetics expressed in these works would not only be appreciated by a privileged elite, but would also reach the general public. The symbolic significance of the universality of Victor Vasarely's optical art lies in the fact that he discovered, even before his time, a visual language that sufficiently met the demands of a globalizing world and, by transcending cultural conventions, anticipated the visual needs of the modern age. His works express the widest possible range of emotions, and the algorithmic logic applied to his compositions, which allows the elements of which they are composed to be altered at will, means that they convey a distinct subjective message to each viewer. It is thanks to this aspect of his work that, even in today's world, where we have become accustomed to the dazzling possibilities of the electronic image and instant access to image after image on social media, Vasarely is still able to satisfy our insatiable appetite for the image.
text by Márton Orosz
