Temporary exhibitions

Curated by: Mária Árvai

Place: Church Hall

Curator’s Introduction

A complex relation to the past—this is what lies at the heart of Lili Ország’s art. In her oeuvre, she placed special emphasis on the relationship between history and remembrance, between processes of personal and cultural memory. Jewish historicism mixed with the sacred, memory work connected to reflection, and survivor’s guilt, which drove her to want to commemorate the victims, inspired masterpieces like Requiem (a series) and De Profundis (a triptych). The concluding piece in her body of work, Labyrinth, too, is about remembrance: she is looking back, referencing her own work, and bringing antiquity back to life in her motifs from cultural history.

Memory, as a concept, can be fruitfully applied to the rich holdings of Municipal Gallery, if on a smaller scale. The present exhibition takes a decidedly partial look at Lili Ország’s oeuvre: almost all pieces on display come from the Kiscell Museum – Municipal Gallery collection.

The exhibition comes in a series of shows exploring the museum as an institution. It examines the tangled relationship between power and art, the surreal claustrophobia of first the Rákosi then the Kádár eras, the difficulties of artistic orientation, and the compromises arising from a thirst for information. The best part of Lili Ország’s work was produced in the tiny studio flat where she lived from the time she graduated until early 1978. Its dimensions stand in stark contrast to her broad intellectual horizon, fantasy, and vast inner spaces, in which we can wander through her works. Major works are displayed in the Temple Space axis, inviting an analysis of her artistic prowess and underlining the significance of the Municipal Gallery collection; the pieces in the side rooms illuminate the creative process, with all its twists and turns.

Both the Kiscell Museum and the Temple Space are unique venues in many respects. All her life, it was Lili Ország’s dream to paint the inside of a temple. In 1960, she wrote to her friends from Tihany, “I’ve got an immense hunger for work! I just want to have at the temple walls, you couldn’t get me away from it until I’ve painted the whole thing. Well, we’ll build a temple!” For her, the “temple” was an idea more than a building. “The temple is inside, you don’t need an actual building,” she said in conversation with István Rácz, one of her first collectors, in 1964. The exhibition centres around this idea of an inner (memory) temple, presenting her mode of remembering and trauma processing, and asking questions about the responsibilities of museums as temples of art and science, as places for the preservation of the past. The exhibition space—an 18 th -century church which went through a series of transformations and was damaged in the second world war before being turned into a gallery space in 1988—reflects architecturally the themes of the paintings: construction and destruction, the intermingling of the sacred and the profane, the past as layers of time and as present.

The ongoing discussion around memory and 20 th -century history in Hungary and Europe brings Lili Ország’s work close to us.

Life with Honey - The History of the Beliczay Gingerbread and Wax Candle Workshop

Organised by ethnographer and historian: Balázs Maczó

Place: 1st floor

Beliczay gingerbread was once a household name in Pest, but we can say it was also known nationally. The success story began in the 1820s, when Imre Beliczay spent his summer, in today’s terms, as a student worker in a gingerbread-making workshop. He liked the work so much that he left high school and became an apprentice instead. Working his way up through the ranks of the guild system, he arrived in Pest in 1831, where he eventually became a master craftsman and opened his own workshop. Located in Király Street, it was unfortunately destroyed by the flood of 1838, after which it relocated to Kismező (present-day Csányi) Street.

Imre Beliczay was not just one among many gingerbread makers. He established the first independent guild of gingerbread makers in Pest, where he soon became the head guild master. Uniquely, he managed the administrative affairs in Hungarian, at a time when German was still the official language of the country. His hand-carved wooden moulds showcased remarkable artistic talent, and this aesthetic quality undoubtedly contributed to his success. He also involved his son, Béla in the trade, and even oversaw his initiation as a master. Upon his father's passing in 1872, he became the manager and owner of the workshop. Guilds were abolished nationwide at this time, and under the new liberal economic framework, the small workshop entered its golden age.

The second half of the 19th century brought many innovations to the confectionery industry. With the spread of ammonium bicarbonate and baking powder, a new type of dough emerged in the honey-based trade. Traditional carved wooden moulds went out of fashion, giving way to gingerbread cut into shapes, such as hearts, hussars, dolls, and other figures decorated with intricate icing and glazing, which became best-selling products. Béla also introduced an innovative special floor polish, inspired by changes in candle production. With the widespread use of stearin, beeswax candles were no longer in high demand. But in a prosperous gingerbread workshop, large quantities of beeswax – a by-product of honey production – were readily available. Previously, it had been put to excellent use in candle making, but after Béla’s invention, the wax was repurposed as a floor polish. By the turn of the century, this product had become the family’s primary source of income.

In 1886, also in Csányi Street, they had a brand new two-storey house built which included their family home, a workshop, and rental apartments. The building still stands today, housing the Gólem Theatre. The family earned numerous domestic and international awards, medals, and prizes, which they took great pride in. However, the Beliczay family was nonetheless impacted by the effects of the economic crisis of the 1920s. The workshop was seized during the Hungarian Soviet Republic, and after the Treaty of Trianon, sourcing honey became increasingly difficult. It is perhaps no coincidence that Béla passed away in 1920. In the hands of his son and brothers, who carried on the legacy, the company became a general partnership, which by the 1930s had grown to the point where they were the sole honey and wax traders in Budapest. In 1936, a member of the fourth-generation, László, was officially registered in the company, ushering in the last golden era of the Beliczay story. In addition to the wide variety of filled, dipped, intricately iced and moulded gingerbread, as well as tea cakes, sweet pretzels, fruit cakes and nougat bars, they continued to sell candles and floor polish as well.

However, the family, which had made it through another world war, could not avoid the tragedy of nationalisation in 1949. The workshop, which by then had been operating for more than a century, was incorporated into the state-run confectionery factories, and the Beliczay family no longer had a role in the business. However, László's expertise was still valued during the years of socialism. He served as a consultant for beekeeping organizations, and companies that produced honey dough products. In his book ‘A méz ipari feldolgozása – Mézes sütemények’ (‘The Industrial Processing of Honey - Honey Cakes’), published in 1960 by the Technical Publishing House, he shared his family's centuries-old knowledge, including their previously closely guarded recipes. 

Thanks to the family’s enduring commitment to social responsibility, the Beliczay legacy has been uniquely preserved. The family themselves donated some of their artistically carved wooden moulds and pieces of guild memorabilia to the Hungarian Museum of Ethnography. After nationalisation, a number of finely crafted pieces were transferred to the Museum of Applied Arts, but the largest collection of Beliczay moulds is kept in the Kiscell Museum of the Budapest History Museum.

The exhibition ‘Life with Honey - The History of the Beliczay Gingerbread and Wax Candle Workshop’ presents this remarkable legacy to the public for the first time. It features an exceptionally rich collection of personal documents of the family, generously loaned by the descendants. The exhibition also aims to highlight the Beliczay family's mission: the love of bees and honey is an essential part of our lives. To bring this experience to visitors, they can not only try their hand at using the traditional wooden moulds, but also take home the once-secret Beliczay gingerbread recipe.

Special thanks for their invaluable assistance in the realisation of the exhibition to Erzsébet Beliczay, descendant of the family, and Mirtill Seregély, gingerbread maker and teacher of traditional honey cake making.