Works on the Edge

Ludwig is the only museum of contemporary art in Hungary to collect international art, founded by the Hungarian cultural government in 1989. The collection was established with 70 pieces of contemporary art since 1955 donated by Irene and Peter Ludwig and the Ludwig Foundation in Aachen. This gift was completed with 91 pieces in 1991 as permanent loans. Also in 1991 the first independent exhibition of the museum curated by the Hungarian National Gallery was opened in Building ’A’ of the Royal Palace. Having been directed by Katalin Néray since 1993 and instantly launching an extensive exhibition activity Ludwig Museum Budapest – Museum of Contemporary Artwas granted an independent budget and status in 1996. This re-foundation saw an extensive growth in the Hungarian section of the collection which was reorganized and thus opened in December 1996. From 1993 up to recent times Ludwig Museum Budapest has presented more than 150 temporary exhibitions of the most significant contemporary artists, Hungarians as well.

2005 is a turning point in the life of the museum: from the Royal Palace it moves to a new location in the south of Budapest, the Palace of Arts of the Millennium City where the collection and the exhibitions are to be granted a fully update technology meeting the highest standards of today’s museology. On three storeys in the Danube wing the museum has a 3300 m2 exhibition space. On 1300 m2 on the first floor the temporary exhibitions, while on the upper two storeys the collection is going to be presented.

The new exhibition opening on 15 March displays the well-known visitors’ favourites and also the museum’s new aqusisitions and some pieces submitted exclusively for this occasion to represent the newest tendencies. While the 1996 exhibition concentrated on the “big classics” (Picasso and American Pop Art: Oldenburg, Warhol, Rauschenberg and Lichtenstein) and the art of the early 1990’s, this selection will premiére quite a few fresh works, with some remarkable projects from the museum’s earlier exhibitions.

One of the most important ambitions of the museum has always been to display Hungarian art in close reference to international scene. It was Peter Ludwig’s definite intention from the beginnings to foster a rapprochement of the ideologically divided pre-1989 world through their arts by buying from Soviet Non-Conformist artists and from other Eastern-European artists, too (Ivan Tsuikov, Yuri Albert, Yuri Leiderman etc). The freshly acquired artworks by László Lakner, Krisztián Frey, Dóra Maurer, Imre Bak, György Jovánovics, Ilona Keserü, István Nádler and others, also by Ana Lupa?, Józef Szajna representing Eastern-European avantgarde from the 1960’s and 70’s, the geometric, minimalist works of the seventies and the international New Painting of the eighties (Baselitz, Lüpertz, Penck, Palladino) will show parallelly with the Western tendencies in our new exhibition, too.

Since the 1990’s the museum has systematically collected works by Czech, Slovakian, Polish, Romanian and Slovenian artists (Jirí David, Roman Ondák, Zbigniew Libera, Zuzanna Janin, Teodor Graur, Dan Perjovschi, etc). Apart from works from the last decade the new selection of the collection will premiere the freshest works by prominent Hungarian artists.