SF in Budapest - Art & Museums

Saturday Photo - Artisan Glasswork

nospam@example.com (SF) — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 11:59:00 -0700

Artisan glasswork - of a style that carries with it an influence that goes back to the secessionist era - is alive and well in Hungary. This light cover is by Szabó Renáta.

T-Mobile Phone Booth Design Competition, Pt. 2

nospam@example.com (SF) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:22:00 -0800

Part 2 of the photos of the T-Mobile phone booth design contest from last year.

This isn't a recent event, it happened last year. But the photos came into my possession and they are so good I have to share them. This is the kind of sense of humor in art that I'd like to see more of in this town!

[ photos: Adler Andrea ]

#1) Nostalgic for the glory days of B-Town?

#2) ...Or are you the type who is nostalgic for the old planned economy? (Dig the varnished wooden 1980 Olympic USSR bear plaque on the wall upper left!)

#3) U can never have 2 much bling in Budapest...

Vienna : Belvedere Museum

nospam@example.com (SF) — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 00:07:00 -0800

Remembering the Vienna 1908 exhibition at the Belvedere Museum in Vienna. The Belvedere is one of Vienna's major art galleries, and it put on a show commemorating the centennial of the Secessionist movement's big debut.

Actually, there's nothing to remember. The exhibition was oversold, and therefore too crowded to enjoy. A herd of Louis Vuitton-toting tourists huffed and stomped their way through the baroque halls and foyers in numbers so great that it wasn't worth the effort to fight them.

So let's just dish about the Belvedere, and the tyrants who once lived there!

The venue's history, from their website:

"The Belvedere’s two magnificent palaces, the Upper and Lower Belvedere, were built in the 18th century as the summer residence for the important general Prince Eugene of Savoy (1663-1736). He chose one of the most outstanding Baroque architects Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt (1668-1745). The palaces with their extensive gardens are considered to be one of the world’s finest Baroque landmarks."

That's the official line. The real story is something that the producers at HBO will investigate whenever they run out of original ideas for another series based on a dynastic, dysfunctional and thoroughly corrupt family.

Prince Eugene (who, incidentally, looked just like Elliott Gould in a powdered wig) started building this place in 1717. When he died, it passed from his hands to members of the Hapsburgs, the ruling elite of the Austrian Empire who tyrannized the Hungarians with repression and genocide off and on for a couple of hundred years.

Various members of the "House of Hapsburg-Lorraine" bounced the Belvedere estate around like a leaden volleyball for a couple of hundred years until their ownership came to a spectacular end with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a Serbian patriot. This ignited WWI, which brought about the end of the family's rule in Austria. At the end of the war, the heir to their creaky old throne - some guy named Karl - had the gall to move in and try to reclaim the palace. He squatted for a time until federal marshals came and threw his ass out on the street.

An ignominious end to a long run at the top. But, you know... what goes around comes around. That's what the karmic wheel will deal you when you mess with Hungarians!

As I already mentioned, the Belvedere was so full of tourists that it ruined the exhibition for us. This is not the first time that I have noticed there is something about totalitarian royalist hot spots that attract the crowd I saw at this place - a trainload of botoxed Philistines swaddled in Burberry, Versace and Venetian cashmere tunics. They seemed to drink in the gaudy, overdone atmosphere of the palace as mother's milk, and, counter to museum-visitor logic, the oversold room pleased them. It gave the unmistakable sense that the show was a "hit", which they seemed to find reassuring. Where is a Serb assassin when you really need one?

By the way - the Hapsburgs still around today, trying to reclaim the throne. Some years ago the L.A. Times ran this delicious article about some of these clown princes.

I tell you, no Hungarian with an instinct for self-preservation can turn their back on these guys. You never know where they'll turn up. I understand there are even a few deposed Hapsburg princesses working at some local cafés.

Museum of Applied Arts

nospam@example.com (SF) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 00:10:00 -0800

Today: A first trip to the Museum of Applied Arts (Iparművészeti Múzeum) on Üllõi Út.

I was skeptical of the name "Applied Arts Museum". Don't know why, but the name had me envisioning historical exhibits of the industrial revolution, or more 'modern' stuff like a disassembled Edison DC turbine, or a 1/20 scale model of a cotton gin.

But even a guttersnipe like me gets educated eventually. The Applied Arts Museum is a palace of decorative arts with a permanent collection and a few shows always in rotation. On the day I was there a variety of exhibits you could see Turkish Ottoman Empire Rugs, Medici Tapestries, Photographs of Ghandi, and Treasures of the Eszterhazy Princes.

The hot ticket on this day was the Craft & Design exhibition - a collection of textile art, fashion concepts, and general industrial design in last weeks of its run. Sounded worth a go.

Even if the place has nothing interesting on display, the building that houses the Applied Arts Museum building is an attraction in itself. It is one of the great buildings of Budapest created during the golden age of the 1890s. With the unique tiled roof and interior design that hints at Indian and Moorish influences, it is a classic of art nouveaux exoticism. Photographs mounted on the walls of the staircase detail the construction, early exhibitions, wartime damage and restoration of the museum.

The Craft & Design exhibit began with textiles. While these creations were interesting conceptually many were, to my eyes, dowdy and unattractive aesthetically. But the photorealistic fabrics on display were nice. And an elegant Asian-minimalist 7' x 3' muslin panel with just a smattering of bright watercolor-ish vermillion poppies woven into it caught my attention for its clean simplicity.

I pointed out the poppy panels to Andi, who was admiring a tongue-in-cheek computer pixel patterned needlepoint.

SF: Hey I like this one! Would make a great wall panel or room divider hanging.
A: Yes, I tink you could maybe actually get this at Ikea.
SF: (stepping back for another look, disappointed) Oh. Yeh. I guess you could.

Onward to sculptures, jewelry and clothing. Better luck here. The clothing ranged from solid to inspired. A 60s-cum-20s flapper dress made of orange and pink ribbon loops was a standout. Mixture of punky stuff amid a gaggle of cocktail dresses that no sane person would actually wear off the runway. You know the kind. Cute stuff though.

Some fun bags and purses on display as we morphed into the pure industrial design section.

Crazy furniture like the Table With Six Wonky Legs - the brainchild of some British smart-aleck designer with expensive eyeglass frames, no doubt. Ingenious utensils and tools from the 70s with interchangeable heads. Graphic design of the new Budapest juxtaposed with old package design from the 30s. Some Socialist Eames-ish chairs from the early 70s, the plywood starting to warp a bit but still looking pretty cool.

An interesting design was the chocolate chess set. Each piece is made of stiff cardboard and contains a chocolate ball of either white or milk chocolate. When you win a piece from your opponent you get to eat the chocolate it carries, of course. Messes up your strategy though. You impulsively and wrecklessly start taking pieces when you get the craving, which can wreak havoc on your carefully-structured Ruy Lopez or Queen's Gambit opening.

A final note... Something that was exasperating about this place was the monitors who hover and stalk you every second you're on the floor. I appreciate their job is boring and they have to protect the goods, but the way we were constantly shadowed was creeeeeeepy. Why can't they let a guy take his illegal copyright-infringing photos in peace?

Russian Modern Art @ Modem

nospam@example.com (SF) — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 00:21:00 -0800

A few notes about the Russian contemporary art currently on display at Modem in Debrecen, and exhibition that translates to something like "Which Way Forward, Russia?" (Hogyan tovább Oroszország?)

Modem is a fine art center in Debrecen, a city in eastern Hungary that is not known for being a big cultural mecca.

The thing I didn't capture was the official work that is used to promote this exhibition - a stunningly grotesque photograph depicting someone's idea of modern Russia. It is an old man, shot from behind, standing in what looks like some barren commercial acreage with a city skyline in the distance. He is holding a huge Russian flag, looking over his shoulder at the camera with a manic scream on his lips and is completely nude. White birds fly above the billowing flag. The creepy thing is that as he stands there, each of his legs are being humped by a pair of vicious looking dogs.

In the marketing for this exhibition this photo was cropped to only show the man's face and part of the flag. It was a jolt to see the whole thing blown up large in the foyer. You can see the photo in this overview of the event.

Didn't spend too much time at this exhibition but some works when I breezed through left an impression. Sorry I don't have artist names or titles, just got a few snaps and memories.

A very witty sculpture greets you in the first room...

Lenin ponders the abstract

The use of black to make the colors pop like metallic car paint was brilliant

Got a kick out of this 3-D diorama of a literate crow

This painting of a Russian poet was highly unique and excellently rendered

The Russian Cultural Ministry politely requests Disney to suck on this one

A wooden cabinet featured a very wack collection of characters

Vienna: Rats!

nospam@example.com (SF) — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 08:43:00 -0800

Outside the Museum Moderner Kunst in Vienna is a very cool promotion for a Peter Kogler exhibition they have on this month. The white rats that are featured on all the kiosks in town promoting this show come to life on the side of the gallery building.

First one rat... then two... then...

Vienna: Leopold Museum

nospam@example.com (SF) — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 00:12:00 -0800

The highlight of a weekend trip to Vienna was the triple-header of the Christian Schad, Vienna 1900 and Egon Schiele exhibitions at the Leopold Museum.

CHRISTIAN SCHAD

Christian Schad has been one of my favorite painters ever since I ran across his work in a book about Berlin art through the 20th century. He came to fame in the years of the Weimar Republic, painting portraits of society slummers and amusement park entertainers with an uncommon intensity.

His career paralleled that of Otto Dix, Max Beckmann and George Grosz - the "New Objectivity" school of German artists. While he fits comfortably in this group of savage social critics of post-WWI German life, Schad's work lacked the harsh cartoonish mockery of traditional painting that these painters reveled in.

Indeed, the precision brushwork and immaculate finish of Schad's work seem more attuned to the detail-obsessed painting of the middle ages than of Berlin's café underground in the 1920s. But this aspect of his work, and the often bizarre symbolism rendered in the backgrounds of his portraits, serve to keep viewers off-balance and burn an unforgettable image into their heads.

The exhibition was excellent. The amount of major works from the 20s didn't disappoint (despite the absence of many that are currently on loan to the New York Metropolitan for their Glitter and Doom show). There was a lot of attention paid to Schad's post-WWII work in abstract forms and a kind of avant-garde photography of his invention called "Schadography". Add to all that many works from others in the New Objectivity school and you have a show that shouldn't be missed.

CAFÉ LEOPOLD

After the Schad show we bailed to the Café Leopold to let it all sink in and discuss over coffee. Sitting in a sterile mid-century modern structure that was cold, overcrowded and full of cigarette smoke was not much fun though.

I wish there was a first-class museum on planet Earth that had a really comfortable café with decent eat and drink, but that runs against the mercenary grain of your average world-class museum which is geared only to get you into the cattle chute of the gift shop as soon as soon as possible.

VIENNA 1900

Anyway... after coffee the Secessionist orgy awaited. A comprehensive collection of paintings, sculpture, panels, decor, posters and objets d'art from the Vienna Secession. Some important Gustav Klimt works, graphic design artifacts and a room full of interior decor exhibits were the highlights of this well-organized show.

In a couple of rooms there were glass cases filled with early 20th artifacts showing off the vast influence this art movement had (and still has to some degree) on graphic design and typography. Interesting to see that even the fonts used in the body text of books got an overhaul in this time.

I was pleased that they even made a modest reference to the heavy influence that the secessionists had on 1960s San Francisco artists with their psychedelic poster and album covers.

EGON SCHIELE

As a third attraction there was an Egon Schiele 90th "death day" retrospective commemorating the artist's untimely demise from Spanish flu in 1918. Couldn't help but take a spin around a few rooms to see what was on display.

I remember a quip about Egon Schiele I once heard at a San Francisco party. Someone was asking an artist friend of mine if he was going to the see Schiele paintings that were showing at some SF gallery or other, and he answered: "Oh you mean that kid who played with crayons? Shit, I'd pay cover charge at Burger King before I'd buy a ticket to see that stuff."

Well, on my first extensive viewing of a room full of squirming, pouting Schiele characters, I have to say - it looks like the kid DO play with crayons. But it's amazing "stuff" nonetheless. Even after 90 years his originality of form and color leap off the canvas. Any artist's influence can be traced, but to my eyes the figures populating Schiele's canvases are notable for looking like nothing in art before or since.

Some of my favorite works on display were the landscapes - or, more accurately, townscapes. The paintings of houses in rows that look suspiciously like the small, close knit houses of Cesky Krumlov were a surprise delight.

I came away from this all-day visit impressed with the Leopold - the wild museum that lets naked people in free during the dog days of summer. Very uncharacteristic of the typical straight-laced Austrian mentality I must say.

Vienna: Edward Hopper @ Wien Kunsthalle

nospam@example.com (SF) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 00:13:00 -0800

First night of a Vienna weekend resulted in a visit to the Kunsthalle Wien for an exhibition called Western Motel: Edward Hopper and Contemporary Art.

This show was a bit of a disappointment, because the promo for this show suggested that a decent selection of Hopper paintings would be the main part of the exhibit. But the bulk of the show focused on a the work of other artists whose work is nowhere near as interesting or important as Hopper's. Apparently just being a grant-hustler who thinks Edward Hopper is cool was enough to get you a commission for this event.

There was one artist in this exhibit whose mission was to recreate the houses, rooms and streets in Hopper's paintings in some kind of 3-D space. File under: Get a Life.

But there were a few brilliant inclusions. One was Ed Rucha's Every Building On The Sunset Strip (1966). I had heard of this work, and it was great to see it for the first time (albeit under a glass case when it should really be reproduced on a wall). This is a very wide photograph of just what the title announces; Ruscha took a photo of every building on Sunset Boulevard in the mid-60s, stitched the photos together and put it into an accordion-style book. To see it today in the era of Google Maps and VR Photography is to realize that what was a moderately interesting pop art project 42 years ago has entered into the more important realm of historical documentation.

Some of Ruscha's paintings were on display too. Another work of interest was David Claerbout's American Car, a bit of conceptual video too off-trail to describe in a post... so read about it here.

Lots of video loops of Jim Jarmusch movies playing too. Jim seems like a nice enough dude but this was stretching it, really.

The contextual background information that curator Gerald Matt and his minions had stuck to the walls for this exhibit was so full of subjective Euro-art puffery that I stopped reading after the 4th or 5th one. Such is what you can come to expect from European academics trying to analyze the soul of the American artist.

Ferdinand Hodler Exhibition @ Szépmuveszeti

nospam@example.com (SF) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 12:11:00 -0700

"Ferdinand Hodler - A Symbolist Vision" exhibition is on at the Szépmuveszeti. Been running since September. Definitely worth a see.

Hodler is a Swiss painter who was active from mid-1800s through the First World War. He developed Parallelism - noteable for its iconic symmetry of symbolic human forms, and fiddling about with how to render a subject's different spatial planes in paint on canvas.

Budapest is a perfect city to display this work, as Hodler was active as an artist during the exact time span as the golden age of this city. While he wasn't part of the Vienna Secession - the art movement that left such a stamp on much of Budapest's classic architectural style - his aesthetic seemed to evolve along similar lines to that of Klimt, Moser and even the decorative art of Tiffany.

Let me say this about the Szépmuveszeti. I wouldn't try to pass myself off as some kind of authority on the art galleries of the world, but I have been to heavies such as: The Louvre, The Musee d'Orsay, NYC's Metropolitan, San Francisco's De Young, LACMA in Los Angeles, and Vienna's Kunsthistorisches, to give a short list. And I still find the Szépmuveszeti compares well to any of the above.

There, I said it. Art snobs out there are free to put me down for it by saying I must have Budapest on the brain or something. They're probably right.

Socialist Realism Exhibit @ Modem - Debrecen

nospam@example.com (SF) — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 12:20:00 -0700

Hit a mother lode of fascinating art exhibits in Debrecen, pretty much by accident.

The Modem art center had advertised the Szocreál show since mid-summer, and it was in its last weeks. So it was lucky that I got to see this great art center and a couple of their well-curated shows.

This exhibition features paintings from 1945 - 1955, rendered by Hungarian artists using the Soviet model of realist painting. You can say they were either boosting morale and awareness of communal progress, or grinding out propaganda - whichever you prefer.

The paintings exhibit subtle stylistic differences that aren't apparent at first blush. When looked at as exponents of a movement, the aesthetic seems bound by a determined but tacky sense of purpose. There is seemingly no modernist bourgeois influence in any of these works. Many of these artists, like Jószef Csaki-Maronyák with his Pioneer Celebrating Her Grandfather, seemed to be content taking their technique from mid-19th Century masters.

However, others adopted more modern approaches to painting. I saw many a facial-feature abstraction a lá Edward Hopper, some draughtsmanship in parallel with that of Thomas Hart Benton, and one so (unintentionally) strange it looked like something from a David Lynch vision.

Still, the byword of this exhibition was: Kitsch. Garish and kitschy. Interesting that when an artist feels the need to subvert his vision and originality, the first thing to go into the toilet is a good color palette. Most of the artists here employed the confused, garish color palette of the hack landscape painter.

One redeeming aspect of the work of these artists is how they paint women. Despite the latent impressionist influences in this show, there were no anorexic Degas dancer-types here. All the gals in these paintings and sculptures were healthy strapping lassies, which I found completely to my taste. More than once I was licking my chops looking at those strong arms and sturdy legs built to carry forward the burden of the proletariat for 1000 years.

Not nearly enough of this breed of hot female in Socialist art, though. Clearly the propaganda ministers missed the boat with this aspect of rallying the proletariat. Now you know the real reason the wall came down.

Rákosi Era photos @ Modem - Debrecen

nospam@example.com (SF) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 12:21:00 -0700

More art from the recent line-up at Modem, Debrecen's very good art center. A few glimpses of the photo archives from the Rákosi era.

For those unfamiliar with Hungarian history, Mátyás Rákosi was the Communist leader of Hungary from 1947 to 1956. Won't waste space here going into too much research and history - the Wiki profile of this funky-ass character can be found here.

These photos and posters are a sample of the exhibit from the national archives. They depict "everyday life" in the Hungary of those times.

Click on the image to enlarge

OK, the first item on today's agenda of the Murányi Utca Collective meeting... who brought the csoki csigak?

The Communist Party got me car insurance at 20% lower than State Farm!

"Hows work today, pet?"
"Ah some jammy bastard in a poof ascot comes down from the party office an' tells me how t' do me bleedin' job. Sod him, an' the bloody revolution too!"

Despite quota shortages, Hungary was a world leader in cool babycarriages.

The real reason Rákosi was ousted... no bitchin' facial hair. Made the rest of the band look bad.

Breed, breed, breed... some fucking worker's utopia I got myself into.

After a long day of licking commisar arse, there's nothin' like a cool pint to take the edge off.

World Press Photo 08

nospam@example.com (SF) — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 07:55:00 -0700

Made the scene at the World Press Photo 08 photo exhibition this evening. World Press Photo is some non-profit organization from Holland who solicit well-heeled patrons, sponsor this annual contest which exhibits in dozens of cities around the globe, and are big time bed-buddies with Canon, Inc.

Yah, Canon Inc. The Stephen Fry of cameras. Their bright red logo was splashed liberally around the hall and was in yo' face on every piece of literature being distributed. As to whether or not you will be disqualified from the World Press Photo contest if you don't use a Canon, there is no indication.

Seems unlikely though. I doubt if, after getting that pulitzer-worthy shot of a Congo militiaman beheading a local villager, you look down in your bag and say "Oh, fudge... I forgot I had my Nikon out. I'll just strap on my EOS and ask him to do it again!"

The exhibition running at Millenaris Park in Buda was very good overall. Francesco Zizola's essay on desperate times in small Colombian towns was a standout, as was Stephen Morrison's excellent 3rd place entry of violence following elections in Kenya.