About

The Gödöllő Applied Arts House (GIM-House) was founded in 1998, gathering professional artists of national and international renown in and around Gödöllő. The aim of the House is to revive the spirit and artistic heritage of the turn-of-the-century Gödöllő Art Colony of Europewide reputation, founded at the turn of the nineteenth century, introducing it to contemporary art, culture, education and international relations. The House is funded by the Foundation for the New Art of Gödöllő. Erzsébet Katona Szabó, textile artist of Ferency Noémi Prize and chairwoman of the Foundation for the New Art of Gödöllő, served as arts director of the GIM-House between 1998 and 2017. Zsófia Hidasi textile designer artist took over in 2018 and has been arts director of the House ever since.

We strive continuously to find the links with the secessionist art colony and also endeavour to redefine its values and position them in a modern-day environment. Arts and life intertwined organically in the everyday life of the Gödöllő Art Colony; it is valid to preserve the notion “arts can be part of our lives” even these days. We do believe that our personality and everyday life, acknowledging the inspiration of our predecessors, are enhanced by connecting with arts – be it either producing or receiving. It is among our main goals therefore to bring publicity to professional contemporary fine and applied arts and to share the joyous experience it conveys.

We organize thematic programs encompassing all arts in our exhibition hall and our picturesque, colour coordinated garden every summer whereby visitors may indulge in open-air animation screening events, fashion fairs/shows, poetry and music evenings, visual performances, venue-specific installations and architectural workshops. Our program is permeated with an all-art endeavour as the fuse of various art genres and the display thereof materializes in our projects and events.

Never ceasing to explore motivations and inspirations of the new artist generation, we display their works besides those of well-known contemporary artists. We put extra emphasis on the interlocking of the areas of art, craft and design. In continuation of the textile arts heritage of such significance in the past of the Gödöllő Art Colony, exhibiting works of the innovative contemporary textile artists is of paramount importance in our vision. A recurring theme of our exhibitions is the workshop pieces, sketches and finished works of Aladár Körösfői-Kriesch, Sándor Nagy and Jenő Remsey – the great representatives of the secessionist Gödöllő Art Colony.

Thematic art workshops are conducted in our atelier for professional artists and art students. Interdisciplinary installations and works – collaborations of artists of different genres – come into existence here under the umbrella of our arts programs. The productive work would, in most cases, occur in the garden of the atelier, giving place also to land art creations and arts installations. There is more to it though than just technical workshops; we coordinate arts projects specifically building on community achievement, thus engaging and involving crowds interested in arts.

Within the framework of our art education program, we would like to present the receptive audience with a link to contemporary arts. This audience may get to know the ebb and flow of planning and creating – all that is going on behind the actual works – as well as the motivations and notions of the artists through exhibition-related technical discussions and guided tours. Our art pedagogy seminars do not just help people to familiarize themselves with the language and ways of visual expression of contemporary fine and applied arts but also the method to convey manual techniques of increasing value.

In the atelier we build our art education (drawing, painting, ceramics and weaving) on traditions; it is characterized by individual sessions with pupils where passing on highly professional knowledge in a competent artistic environment is of huge importance. Traditional carpet weaving techniques can be acquired in our weaving workshop; our contemporary weaving workshop, in turn, focusses on teaching these very techniques but with a twist of modern aesthetics. The art garden as well as the atmosphere of our atelier provide the perfect environment for creative work for those still in their studies and the casually interested students alike.

The atelier of the GIM-House is situated in the street of the erstwhile Gödöllő Art Colony – called Körösfői-Kriesch Aladár street today –, in the life of which the garden played a pivotal role. The fragrant garden of Aladárné Körösfői – aka auntie Ilka („Ilka néni”) – was well-known and visited by the whole city. The founders of the House therefore, moved by the inspiration of the predecessors, created a garden of scenic atmosphere which also functions as an open-air exhibition space. One may want to call the front yard a well-composed garden of colours: golden, silver and scarlet, where sweet-scented flowers, perennials, shrubs and trees are dotted around and where the emblematic feelings take turns every season with the change of plantation.