The Hero, The Heroine And The Author
It was during the nineteenth century with the rise and expansion of the movement known as Romanticism, when it began to raise the artists relationship with its environment. This reflection, of course, came from the creators. Poets, painters, musicians and artisans are no longer serving an elite caste (as was it was in the previous centuries) in exchange for a meager patronage. When they went apart from the dependency, the artists took on another role and aspire to become intermediaries between tangible realities and the unknown beyond of which they wish to be its translators. Artists claimed to be magician, demiurge, beings that acted as a guide border between the prosaic everyday life and beyond where the spirituality lies.
On this view, the bohemia, of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, was strengthened. Fantasy, dreamlike and surrealism were opening the way. Artists claimed their freedom and called themselves authentic Heros. That means that the creator is the one that opens doors to a different reality than the others simply don’t know, which also included that freedom, sometimes that detachment tied them to the margins of society. Even like that, the artist rise, with a self-imposed aura that stands in the center, not only of the creation, but becoming an official translator of the intricacies and mysteries of the world.
Well, with this concept (which may include various genres, trends and periods), the Ludwig Museum in Budapest, devoted to contemporary art, showcases an exhibition, which opens on the 6th of July the 21st of October, called “The Hero, The Heroine And The Author” And even though at the moment I am writing this text there are no many details about the size of the exhibition, you can be sure that the exhibition will be just great. Here is the link of the exhibition where you can find practical information and even purchase tickets via online: http://www.ludwigmuseum.hu/site.php?inc=kiallitas&kiallitasId=803&menuId=44
Budapest opens to modernity with a strong, cultural exhibition of scandal and envy, as a macro festival happen one after the other. If during spring the city is filled with concerts, exhibitions and street shows, during early summer, the capital of Hungary is shaken with film series, classic outdoor activities in its parks, sporting events and other good cultural activities the city has to offer. So Budapest is a favorite among seasoned travelers coming from anywhere in the world: not only because is nourished by a rich cultural legacy, but also because of the importance of theater, music and sport in contemporary society try to answer this demand. In this blog we frequently comment about it.
Candela Vizcaíno
Remember that the peak season for this part of Europe begins in early summer and extends well into the autumn, as the exhibition in question, so it is advisable to book Budapest apartments in advance because the high occupancy and that last minute rush is never good.
János Megyik in Budapest
Until the 10th of June the Ludwig Museum in Budapest exhibits “The Space of the Image”, which defines the conceptual aspects of the works by János Megyik. The exhibition takes questions that Megyik contantly asked himself about art and the place of painting, since his great work was on the edges of the painting, sculpture and architecture modeling of structures and painted panels.
The exhibition examines the work of Megyick and his research focused on spatiality, asking how to do the painting on the table in the world Megyick to create a three dimensional model. To answer this question, the exhibition explores its wooden buildings, frames, cardboard reliefs and plaques with stain of his last period as an architect.
Megyik János was born in Szolnok, Hungary in 1938. Between 1950 and 1954 he studied painting with Károly Harmos in Rev Komarno in Slovakia. In 1954 he moved his residence to Budapest and studied for two years at the Institute of Fine Arts, Applied Arts and in 1956 immigrated to Vienna. There he studied at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts where he met Andersen, Dobrowsky and Boeckl.
In 1963 he began studying painting on the table and the reflection that produces three-dimensional models, being heavily influenced by studies of projective geometry. A decade later he used his space studies to create metal sculptures, a material that he changed for the wood years later, while including interesting architectural plans to achieve them.
In 1972, he exhibited his work Construction of Nothing done with Alpár Bujdoso at the First Hungarian Conference Workshop held in Marly le Roi. Projective geometry and subjectivity of the planes were the essence of his artwork, especially in his relief work with steel plates that dominated his work in the 90s, playing with geometric shapes and perspective in space.
The year 1977 he made photograms for his sculptures in wood. His enormous capacity to investigate the figure, the planes and movement, led him to work with the human figure in the 80s, when he moved to New York to continue studying. His eyes from the human body and the plasma in three-dimensional sculpture with fine ribs, gave the picture motion, despite the rigidity of the material.
In 1991 he was awarded with the Munkácsy Prize in recognition of his work and contribution to culture. In the late 90 he started working in Kötcse, province of Somogy and traveled to Rome to study with a grant from the Hungarian Academy.
János Megyik has worked and experimented with his work freely and poetic geometry. Its delicate sculptures, made with perfection and thoroughness is one of the most interesting of the twentieth century, not only because it experiences forms, but because it works with innovative materials such as large sculptures made by wood.
For more information: http://www.ludwigmuseum.hu/site.php?inc=kiallitas&kiallitasId=800&menuId=44
Nancy Guzman
A good time to walk along the banks of the Danube is the spring, so book apartments in Budapest in advance and forget the stress by attending the great cultural activities about János Megyik.
OSAS PLUS in Budapest
As of the first of May, the Vasarely Museum in Budapest will open the OSAS PLUS exhibit performed by founding artists of the Open Structure Art Society (OSAS). This year the exhibition is an interesting proposal where each artist is also an OSAS curator, therefore proposing a free thematic exhibit without restrictions as to subject or any order. The exhibition is organized around 10 artists and other Hungarian artists that do not belong to OSAS as well as international guest artists . The art historian Julia N. Mészáros and the collector and art critic Andras Szollosi-Nagy, participate as curators.
OSAS began doing these shows in 2006. Three years later there was a second version and with OSAS PLUS the third version is on, and with it a tradition in the area of the Museums exhibits. Despite the distance between these exposures, these six years have successfully completed 14 other thematic exhibitions of contemporary art at the Vasarely Museum making it the headquarters of their exhibitions, where the topics range from graphic arts to conceptual art and even designing of ornamentation.
As part of the exhibition wanted to pay tribute to the sculptor Hetey Katalin, who died in 2010, an exhibition with his final drafts and sketches of completed works has been organized. As a special part of the exhibition it will also display the graphic album titled Piece Unique, an art piece by the members of OSAS, of which there are only fifteen copies available.
The ten artists on exhibition are: István Haász, Gáyor Tibor Konok Tamás, Dora Maurer, Mengyán András István Harasztÿ, Judith Nem, Vera Molnar, Janos and Istvan Nadler Megyik. They have selected their own work, some is recent and some is old and everyone invited a Hungarian or international artists to exhibit part of their work.
Tibor Gáyor is a Hungarian painter who orders visual elements to give strength and meaning to the content of his work. From the 60s his works of geometric and abstract paintings give a set of tones that are consistent with his visual puns.
János Megyik: His work always walks on the edge of architecture, sculpture and painting. He uses simple materials to give three-dimensional volume to his work and plays with colors to confront the planes, always giving volume to his images.
Vera Molnar is a Hungarian painter who has described her work as a logic search of creation. Currently she working in computer-aided construction of simple geometric shapes, that is changing gradually as to see the evolution and transformation that occurs through successive amendments.
Judith Nem is a Hungarian artist representative of the geometric art of the 50s and 60s, she has also worked in the creative tendency of the “book as an object” as well as computer graphic art. She currently lives in Paris.
For more information: http://www.vasarely.hu/kiallitasok_en/index.php?main_menu[main_menu][item]=3&lang[lang]=en
Nancy Guzman
To change and look at life with more optimism in difficult times it is recommended to take a few days off, so take advantage of the arrival of spring and rent apartments in Budapest You will not regret it.
Rita Ackermann in Budapest
The 18th of November, the Budapest Ludwig Museum opens the exhibition of works by the Hungarian artist Rita Ackermann. The exhibition is curated by Kata Oltai, who has organized it around her latest works which are juxtaposed with some of her early works, within the space given to the Museum of Hungarian artists who have so far been not very well-known.
Rita Ackermann was born in Budapest in 1968. She studied Fine Arts in Hungary. In the late 90s she moved to New York, where she lives and works today. She started her career as a painter and then evolved to complex visual arts, influenced by trends and discussions on art in the United States and her studies at the School of Art in New York. Her complex works reflect her own transformations and became one of the favorites of the underground of New York at the end of the twentieth century.
Her works, interestingly combine different art languages. Music, image and plastic, which adds a variety of languages and particular expressions, typical of the youth or certain social classes that give her a sense of wholeness and content on the world around New York, as a summary of all cultures.
Her series of drawings and collages with pieces of poetic texts reflect the search for answers from a youth that lost its generous dreams for humanity and is now plunged into drugs, alcohol and promiscuous sex, almost like a collective suicide. She is not looking to respond to the existential anxiety with her work. Rather there are only questions, not interpretations or social criticism. Those tasks are left to the viewer, looking respond to and interpret the uncertainties about his/her generation.
Her perspective and story focuses on fertility and pornography. They are diametrically opposed to contrast the procreation and pleasure, in socioculturally terms they are decoupled. Ackermann tries to betray the location of a generation immersed in a society, which is constantly bombarded with messages about pleasure, but when people dare to do what the messages say, thy get punished by the law. This was reflected in her most interesting work Escorpionun, which juxtaposes images and texts.
This is the first stage of work, which opened the way to the stage where Ackermann examines art and the historical process contained and expressed through art, focusing on traditions and concepts of European painting, in contradiction to the U.S. . An interesting look that goes to the debate with the history of art.
Ackermanns work at the Ludwig is an interesting exhibition to appreciate, this symbolic imaginaries of the Hungarian artist, because all of them are her vision of two worlds, the origin and the arts and everyday life.
For more information http://ludwigmuseum.hu/site.php?inc=kiallitas&kiallitasId=764&menuId=44
Nancy Guzman
The Danube, wide avenues, culture, romance and coffee is what you need for this fall. Just rent apartments in Budapest and come to enjoy the best moments of your life.
Translated by: Hans
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József Szolnoki: Homeopathic Reality in Budapest
Until the 31st of November, the Ernst Museum in Budapest exhibits the interesting exhibition Homeopathic Reality by the Hungarian conceptual artist József Készman. The exhibition explores the transience and the changes, aspects which have marked the memory of Hungary due to the great changes which theyve experimented in the last twenty years.
The exhibition explores through this word which defines a type of medicine, the social and political acts of Hungarian society. Homeopathy is a term which comes from the greek word homolos, which means similar, and pátosz which means suffering or harm. Homeopathy is based on curing illnesses with something similar to what caused the illness, and it has a deep holistic meaning, curing body and soul. A thesis argued by allopathic medicine, especially because its principle is that the patient receives every time concentrates dissolved in water, which will make a bigger impact on the damage.
The work of József Készman is based on this logic and it looks to promote comprehension in a similar way as homeopathic truths. His work tries to confirm the cultural and relational impacts aided by an investigation on the audience, where he explores onirical movements which he then puts into images in his videoart.
József Szolnoki, known as Szokó, is an important Hungarian artist who works with multimedia. He currently lives in Cologne and is a member of the Hungarian art team Kaos Camping.
In his work, he refers us to his childhood expressing the relevant things from that time of his life, which completely defined him, his angst to explain how he became into a communicator first and and then into a party member in the very same week. Confusion and angst are what his questions on coexistence of ideological systems different to the souls and minds of the people express.
Szolnoki looks for the essence and mystery of identity in his work Homeopathic Identity, looking at the Hungarian society as a body which has amplified all the relations with harm derived from the cultural influences which he has lived through in this process of changes which took place in the 20th century, and which are finally the cause of the appearance of identities.
Therefore, just like in homeopathy, Szolnoki proposes that the cure to all pain is to inoculate all that produces harm dissolved in an infinitesimal way, to manage to recover the health and soul of society. This deep work on social pain and angst where memory plays an important role, takes the spectator to get to know the spirit of Hungary.
A great conceptual proposal brought to you by Szolnoki in this exhibition, where he constructs and deconstructs formal language to give meaning to his aesthetic proposal, which has many political art codes.
For more information: http://www.mucsarnok.hu/new_site/index.php?lang=en&t=590&curmenu=106
Nancy Guzman
Hungary and its magic always motivate us to go and visit it. So if you have time and want to enjoy a rest in the stressing final days of the year, remember that you can have a great time in apartments in Budapest with views to the Danube, in one of the most exciting cities in Europe.
Translated by: aleixgwilliam
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Yona Friedman in Budapest
One of the most important retrospective exhibitions of the work of the artist, architect and urban planner, Yona Friedman, opens on the 28th of October 28 at Ludwig Museum in Budapest. This exhibition, which will be on display until the 8th of January 2012, covers theoretical processes, artwork, projects and drawings by Friedman.
The Exhibition is organized to cover almost all relevant aspects of this artist, including the development of his work as an architect, urban planner and the theoretical approaches that have become a required source for young artists and architects who produce works using as a stage the public space or are worried about it and the link of them with the individuals.
Yona Friedman was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1923. He is considered one of the most important living contemporary artists in this country, despite his French nationality. He was famous for his anticipating theories about urbanism and also for building interesting concepts that revolutionized the way we see the development of cities and human settlements, raiding models based on sustainability. He also explored the animated film and design.
He is considered the father of utopian architecture; his proposals are always placed in areas bordering the creation and theory, even leaving many of his statements in an “unsolvable” state in terms of technical and practical aspects. Hence the name of utopian architecture.
During the World War II, he managed to flee from the Nazi repression and moved to the city of Haifa, Israel, where he stayed for over a decade. In 1957 he was finally transferred to Paris where he became a citizen in 1966.
In 1956 he participated in the 10th International Congress of Modern Architecture in Dubrovnik with his “Manifesto of the mobile architecture”, revolutionizing the art scene with his perspective on the creation of cities, where inhabitants can enjoy the freedom of movement, breaking with the idea of rigid architectural structure.
Among the applications or forms of materialization of the “mobile architecture” he proposes the concept of “Space City”, which raised the possibility of building mobile and adaptable spaces, detachable and changeable for their own inhabitants. A revolutionary idea of social architecture, that ended up permeating his entire career and his work.
In 1958 he founded the research group Mobile Architecture (GEAM), not for long, but with a short productive life, the group was dissolved in 1962, being a fundamental reference for the process of change and transformation in the early 60s.
Among his most important works are the Cylindrical Shelers a construction proposal for immigrants, done in 1953, Span-Over notebook in 1958, where he developed his manifesto Mobile Architecture and in 1989 the Science Museum of La Villette in Paris.
In the area of the theory, the publications: Toward a Scientific Architecture at MIT Press, 1975. Meina Fibel in 1982 and Pro Domo ACTAR D, 2006. These and other publications reported a proliferation of theoretical and supported his effort to make room for thinking about a better life in cities.
For more information http://ludwigmuseum.hu/site.php?inc=kiallitas&kiallitasId=763&menuId=44
Nancy Guzman
If youre spending a romantic autumn in apartments in Budapest walking through its beautiful streets and enjoying the amazing architecture, you cannot miss the Museum Ludwig and this second to none exhibition.
Translated by: Hans
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Site Inspection at the Ludwig Museum in Budapest
With the 20th Anniversary of the first permanent exhibition, the Ludwig Museum presents until the 23rd of October Site Inspection – The Museum on the Museum. The exhibition focuses on the present discussion on the museum and its meaning on art, the artists and the public.
This exhibition is commissioned by Katalin Székely and, together with the museums curatorial team, she looks to expose the great changes that the museum space has gone through down the years and the critique that part of the artists have made in all this art process in the 20th and 21st century.
This ambivalent relationship of the artist with the institution has been regular and permanent in the world of art. A contradictory relationship where the artist requires: it, but at the same time directs his most intense critiques to the social representation space that museums are today: a space of power, a fundamental step in the market and a status mark and work value.
The exhibition puts special emphasis on the avant-gardist call of the 70s, both in the local and international space. This special outlook to avant-gardism is because in some shape or form, its institutional review can be considered a precursor of contemporary thinking spaces on the museum.
But we cant forget previous processes on this critique, like the ones lived by the artists of the so-called avant-garde. Such is the case of Marcel Duchamp, who was one of the first to pose the paradoxes of work and its context, the relation between the artist and the museum and the one between the artist and the spectator.
For the conceptual artists of the 60s and 70s, this becomes crucial. The work loses or gains meaning according to its context and, for this reason, the museums transform into immobile and rigid spaces where the shapes and established spaces for each exhibition become disconnected from its process and from the relation with the spectator. For the avant-garde, the museum is part of the social gearing and, in the same way, ideology, representation of the shapes of social relation and the market in which theyre inserted. For that, its critique and investigation is directed to the social space as a whole.
This interesting and complex situation is well reflected in a series of films and videos that are presented in the film space in the exhibition, with works by artists such as Costa Gavras, Woody Allen, Alfred Hitchcock and Aleksandr Sokurov among others.
The artists that begun the institutional critic through their work or in their investigation projects during the 60s and 70s, they consciously made works that werent marketable and salable, many times, with the idea of carrying out a short or invaluable project for the logic of the market.
That way we can appreciate in this exhibition works by artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Andrea Fraser, Halász Károly, NETRAF, Dalibor Martines, Alan Sekula, Hans Haacke or Azorro Group among others.
For more information: http://ludwigmuseum.hu/site.php?inc=kiallitas&kiallitasId=782&menuId=43
Nancy Guzman
If your destination option this summer has been to walk along the shores of the Danube and having a relaxing time in apartments in Budapest you cant not visit the impressive Ludwig Museum and walk through this exhibition that gathers great 20th century contemporary artists.
Translated by: aleixgwilliam
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Art on Lake in Budapest
Until the 4th of September, the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest will display an innovative exhibition that is already considered as one of the most exciting artistic productions of its kind. Art on Lake exhibits 25 works by artists from 14 European Union countries, which are screened outdoors at City Park Boating Lake.
The contemporary art exhibition continues the tradition of giving local artists the right to display their works. That is why this project has been planned during three last years in cooperation with the EU and the Government of Hungary, whose organization went to the Museum of Fine Arts.
This project has been considered as an extension of the Museum in public spaces. This exhibition changes the walls and corridors of the traditional museums for 35 thousand square meters of natural environment in the middle of the city. In this environment, artists from Belgium, Finland, France, the Czech Republic, Netherlands, Poland, Germany, Romania, Russia, Spain, Slovakia, Italy, England, Austria and Hungary present the best of their work.
The exhibited works are focused in giving visibility to the pressing problems of our time, while giving a positive look at the solutions they might have. In the selection process of the guest artists and their works for the exhibition were involved the Municipal Gallery director Peter Fitz, art historian and curator Krisztina Jerger and independent art historian and exhibition organizer Alexander Tolnay.
In the long list of participating artists are: Susana Solano and Jaume Plensa from Spain, Patrick Poirier from France, Günter Uecker, Via Lewandowsky and Willi Weiner from Germany, Daniel Knorr from Romania, Kristof Kintera from the Czech Republic, The Hungarian artists Róza El-Hassan, Zeno Kelemen, Ilona Németh and Balázs Kicsiny, among many others.
The conceptual sculptures are scattered around the lake and the page http://www.artonlake.hu/ shows a map of the distribution of the works, the artist and a photo of the sculpture.
Susana Solanos work, one of the best representatives of contemporary Spanish sculpture, has an interesting poetical approach referred to the human burden due to the limited natural space in modern cities. It is composed by two elements and the nature of the place that completes the meaning of the work. It consists of a white plane floating on the lake and on it a white boat.
Each sculpture is a visual poetry, there are small floating gardens, metal butterflies perched on the lake, suspended in the water jars, candles that are deployed on the lake, etc. All of them appeal to the beauty of nature and the need to preserve it.
For more information http://www.szepmuveszeti.hu/web/guest/articleview?mi_layout_id=29.30&mi_article_id=846
Nancy Guzman
Art on Lake is a great show not to be missed if you are on holiday in apartments in Budapest Enjoy the most beautiful natural environment of the city.
Translated by: Hans
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László Moholy-Nagy in Budapest
Until the 25th of September, the Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art will present László Moholy-Nagy’s work in the exhibition The Art of Light, composed by 130 paintings, black and white photographs, color photographs and graphical sketches made after 1922, when he devoted himself to teaching and formulating art theory by joining The Bauhaus School.
The exhibition is organized by the Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art in collaboration with the Circle of Fine Arts from Madrid, Martin-Groups-Bau from Berlín, Germeentemuseum Dem Haag and The Factory, in order to highlight his rich and varied work, specially the theoretical contribution to the modern art in his works focused in light.
Lázlo Moholy-Nagy was born in Bácsborsod, Hungary in 1895. Despite the fact of having studied Law, he opted for art, being considered one of the best photographers of the beginning of the 20th century. He was also a painter and an art theorist. He left a legacy of interesting intellectual work on contemporary art.
He was studying Law when the First World War begun, but the conflict led him to join the army. Later, he dropped out from the University to devote himself to painting with chalk and Indian ink. During the 1920’s, he moved to Berlin and devoted himself totally to experiment with photography and stills, getting impressive results. His stills of 1922 are considered nowadays works of art of incalculable value.
The following year he started leading metal workshops in The Bauhaus School. He also began to investigate the metal effects and stability; besides he introduced photography as a field of study at the Bauhaus.
His first theoretical work appeared in 1925 under the title Painting, Photography, Film, which became the 8th book of the series Bauhaus Books. Moholy-Nagy reflects his investigations about the use of light in photography in his book and he establishes a parallel between light and painting as instruments that can be defined by the color range in an art piece.
His passion for the phenomenon of light in the artistic creation led him to develop structures with movement and cavities through which light is filtrated, in order to see how they drew light and shadow silhouettes as the structures move.
This work involved him in kinetic sculpture, where movement, light and structure form an object that casts a variety of shapes as it moves.
László Moholy-Nagy immigrated to Chicago in 1937 expecting to reach the same success he had reached at the Bauhaus, but he failed and he could only found an art school that did not have a significant impact. He died from Leukemia in 1946 in Chicago.
For more information: http://www.ludwigmuseum.hu/site.php?inc=kiallitas&kiallitasId=768&menuId=44
Nancy Guzman
Seeing and knowing Moholy-Nagy works is a privilege that only a few people can have; so if you are staying at apartments in Budapest you can visit the Ludwig Museum and contemplate the work that this artist made at the beginning of the 20th century.
Translated by: Hans
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Mladen Stilinović at the Ludwig in Budapest
Between the 22nd April – 3rd July, Budapests Ludvig Museum presents a retrospective of Mladen Stilinović – a collection of installations, collages, photographs and books by the neo-avantgarde artist from ex-Yugoslavia.
Mladen Stilinović was born in Zagreb in 1947, and in the 1980s was the director of Medija Proširenih Galerija (Media Gallery), and the co-founder of Galerija Podroom.
Between 1975 and 1980, Stilinović was part of the Six Authors Group, which was formed of conceptual artists interested in the idea of public art, and creating installations in urban areas. Stilinović made placards from basic materials, with provocative, politically critical slogans as well as photographs, newspaper cuttings, and simple phrases written in pen. His work, strongly influenced by the politics of his country, reflects the pain caused by the war which followed the fall of Socialism. He constructs his works based on a dramatic, dynamic narrative, playing with linguistic signs to express the mechanisms of power, and his own artistic fantasy of a world without creative barriers in which dreams and ideas can freely subvert order.
The work which stands out for the originality of its artistic and political theory consists of a piece of pale pink cloth, on which is written in black “An Artist Who Cannot Speak English is no Artist.” Stilinović emphasises and challenges the dominance of English, as the language of globalisation by scoring the “No” in red – an ironic play on words as a form of artistic protest.
Stilinovićs interest in poetry and cinema gives a sequential note to his works – each individual piece has a concept, but viewing them all as a whole gives its meaning. This is an effect repeated in his books, which take on cinematic pace as the pages go on.
In The Praise of Laziness Stilinović posits a profound criticism of the various political systems which governed the world using methods of exploitation and discrimination, maintaing that both socialism and capitalism deny the right of laziness, and condemn it as an evil which leads to vice. The capitalist system, Stilinović points out, only grants the luxury of laziness to a lucky few, whilst everyone else is exploited in order to produce capital wealth. He adds that socialism, which was conceptualised upon bringing an end to work, reversed to praise work as the only way of generating happiness. Finally, he asserts “laziness is the mother of perfection” and that without it, art wouldnt exist.
For more information
http://www.ludwigmuseum.hu/site.php?inc=kiallitas&kiallitasId=760&menuId=44
Nancy Guzman
To discover the work of this interesting anarchist philosophist artist, you just need to go down to the Ludwig Museum if you are in Budapest. To experience spring in the city, rent apartments in Budapest
Translated by: Poppy
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