THE REPUBLIC OF HUNGARY 
2007
Consultants: Paxton Barnes • Grant Beglarian • Alexander Brody • Schuyler C. Chapin • Andre H. Friedman • Honee Hess • Michalann Hobson • Bradford Kelleher • Brian Lacey • Sharon Litwin • Peter Lyman • Amy Módly • Pamela Myers • Ward Mintz • Jane D. Norman • Jillian Poole • Charles Ritcheson • Julius Rudel • Jane Safer • George Stuart Sexton III • Wendy Tiffin • Linda Vadasz • Deborah Ziska
Budapest
March 5–9, 2007
Regional Russian Museums Directors Conference:
Managing Change in Museums in the 21st Century
At the request of The Fund, Amy Módly and Linda Vadasz, both former Country Directors for The Fund in Hungary, organized the Regional Russian Museum Directors conference, “Managing Change in Museums in the 21st Century”. The conference began at the Museum of Fine Arts on its first day and then rotated to a different museum in Budapest on subsequent days. The attendees included thirty-three museum directors and six representatives from the Russian State Museum.
The conference opened with welcoming remarks from Dr. Laszlo Baan, General Director of the Museum of Fine Arts, and continued with discussions on management, fund-raising, public relations, adult and children’s programming, docent education, and the concept of “Friends of the Museum”.
Dr. Lorand Bereczky, General Director of the Hungarian National Gallery, discussed sponsorship by corporate arts patrons and challenges of art restoration on the conference’s second day. He then led the conference attendees on a visit to the museum’s restoration studio and gave a tour of the museum.
The third day was spent at the Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art, where Dr. Katalin Neray, General Director, gave a talk on the challenges of working with architects, fund-raising, programming, and their Friends of the Museum program. A late afternoon talk, led by Andras Torok, President of Summa Artium, focused on raising matching funds from the corporate sector.
The Hungarian National Museum hosted the conference’s fourth day. Dr. Tibor Kovacs, General Director, discussed how his museum collaborated with private collectors to present a history of Hungarian art exhibit. Lunch that day was hosted by Gabor Kovacs, founder of Kogart Gallery, who led an afternoon tour of his gallery.
The conference ended with a roundtable discussion at the Museum of Fine Arts and a tour of Szentendre, a village outside of Budapest that used to be an artists’ colony.
Hungarian museum personnel expressed a wish to continue a dialogue with their Russian colleagues, while Gabor Kovacs of Kogart Gallery may carry on a discussion to bring some Russian art to his gallery.
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