The Kovács Gábor Art Foundation

It was in the autumn of 2002 that Gábor Kovács announced the establishment of a private foundation with the initial capital of 3 billion forints, for the purposes of supporting the contemporary visual arts. A patron and collector of art, the founder seeks to broaden the local audiences of Hungarian contemporary art, to vitalize its international relation, and ultimately to create a collection of 21st-century international art.

KOGART House, a beautifully renovated villa on Budapest’s prestigious Andrássy Avenue that gives home to the Kovács Gábor Art Foundation, was opened in the spring of 2004. Boasting a 1600 sq. m exhibition space, the House offers a new show every two to three months. Outstanding artists who have had solo exhibits in the House include Tamás Hencze, Béla Kondor, Zsuzsa Péreli, László Fehér, Tibor Csernus and István Haraszty. The institution has also provided views of collections that are rarely or never open before the public (as the MKB Collection, or the Portrait Collection of the Hungarian National Gallery).

KOGART has staged several shows elsewhere, as in Budapest (e.g. in the National Museum, and the Palace of Arts) and other towns in Hungary (Veszprém, Orosháza), as well as abroad (e.g. in Brussels, Berlin and Vienna). In a like vein, the House has hosted many a foreign exhibitor (like the Museum of Modern Art, Saint-Etienne, France, or American sculptor Denis Oppenheim).

The summer now traditionally belongs to the youngest artists: Fresh Europe provides a chance for select new graduates of art academies to come to the fore. The best of the cream receives KOGART’s Young Artist Award, which enables him or her to work for a year with financial support from the Foundation.

KOGART’s own collection is continuously enlarged with the Foundation’s purchases of the best exhibits at the contemporary shows, and the museum shop offers an ever wider palette of the Foundation’s own publications, catalogues, albums and DVDs.