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Plaster Casts & Cast Collections Across Europe. History and Future – International Conference

First Floor - Schickedanz Hall
May 24, 2022

09:30 - 16:30

Venue: Schickedanz Hall, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Starting from 2013, a project had been initiated to rehabilitate and refurbish the more than a hundred-year-old plaster cast collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest. The re-display of selected pieces from the collection was made possible due to the reconstruction and extension of the Star Fortress in Komárom (North West Hungary) carried out between 2017 and 2019 as part of the Liget Budapest Project. Another part of the cast collection will soon be exhibited in a visible storage at the newly built National Museum Conservation and Storage Centre in Budapest. To celebrate this almost ten-year-long project, as a final event, the Museum of Fine Arts is organizing a conference, which brings together international and Hungarian scholars to discuss the history and future of European plaster cast collections. The contributions will focus on the formation, composition and presentation of historic cast collections, their reception and re-evaluation in the 20th and 21th century as well as the various roles and uses of plaster casts.

The language of the conference is English.

Programme
9:30 – 10:00 Welcome and coffee
10:00 – 10:10 Director’s welcome
Dr László Baán (General Director, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest)
10:10 – 10:20 Introduction
Miriam Szőcs (Head of the Department of Sculptures, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest)

Session 1

The Formation and Presentation of Historic Cast Collections
Moderation: Márton Tóth (Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest)

10:20 – 10:40 “The best laid schemes …”. An Investigation into Historical Approaches to the Formation of Plaster Cast Collections
Eckart Marchand (Bilderfahrzeuge Research Group / The Warburg Institute, London)

10:40 – 11:00 The Colleoni Monument and the Medici Tombs. Monumental Renaissance Casts in the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest
Miriam Szőcs (Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest)

11:00 – 11:20 From Northern Italy to Hungary: Medieval and Renaissance Monumental Casts between the Campi Carlo Museum in Milan and the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest
Flavia Berizzi (Brera Academy of Fine Arts, Milan)

11:20 – 11:40 Plaster Casts of Antiquities in Budapest and Kolozsvár / Cluj-Napoca
Géza Andó (Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest) and Eszter Süvegh (King St. Stephen Museum, Székesfehérvár)

11:40 – 11:50 Q&A
11:50 – 12:00 Coffee break

Session 2

The Role and Uses of Plaster Casts
Moderation: Ágnes Bencze (Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Budapest)

12:00 – 12:20 The Role of Ancient Plaster Casts in Ancient Art – The Written Evidence
Rune Frederiksen (Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen)

12:20 – 12:40 19th-Century Constructions and Monument Reconstructions in Hungary in the Context of Educational Plaster Cast Collections
Júlia Katona, PhD (Hungarian University of Fine Arts – High School of Visual Arts, Budapest)

12:40 – 13:00 Plaster Casts and Architectural Education – The Reconstruction of the Historical Plaster Cast Collection of the BME Faculty of Architecture
Eszter Hajós-Baku PhD and Beáta Szűts (Budapest University of Technology and Economics)

13:00 – 13:10: Q&A
13:10 – 14:40: Lunch break

Session 3

Reception, Re-Display and Future Perspectives
Moderation: Júlia Katona (Hungarian University of Fine Arts – High School of Visual Arts, Budapest)

14:40 – 15:00 The Making and Meaning of Plaster Casts in the 19th Century: Their Future in the 21st Century
Holly Trusted (Victoria and Albert Museum, London)

15:00 – 15:20 The Avatars of the Collection of Plaster Casts of the Musée des Monuments Français, Paris
Jean-Marc Hofman (Cité de l’Architecture & du Patrimoine, Paris)

15:20 – 15:40 Revered and Reviled. Plaster Casts in the 20th Century
Lorenz Winkler-Horaček (Freie Universität, Berlin)

15:40 – 16:00 Discussion
16:00 End of Day

Admission is free of charge

Download the conference brochure here

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