BudapestCult

All about my mother

2010-05-08T16:20:00.004+02:00

Almodóvar’s famous movie on stage in Pesti Színház

Emotionally unsettling story about a mother who --after an awful tragedy --travels to Barcelona to search for his son’s father.

While she is trying to detect the man, she meets her old friend, Agrado, who is a transsexual now. Also, she gets to know Rosa, a nun, who protects prostitutes and becomes secretary of his son’s favorite actress. Deep, emotional friendship relates the three women. Each of them is lonely and defensive. The play covers different story-lines; the audience is unaware whether the whole piece exists only in the imagination of the teenager Esteban or is true. Actually, Esteban is an amateur director who tries to find out his mother’s secrets and also, he wants to know, who his father is.

Crime and punishment, passion and sacrifice are being focused in the play. Almodóvar’s Oscar-winning world-famous movie is on stage in Hungary for the first time in Pesti Színház. The play is directed by Kamondi Zoltán, who is directing films, but he is also respected in the world of theatre.

Márffy Ödön's exhibition in Kogart

2010-04-26T22:11:00.001+02:00

Colors, light, and glamour-Márffy Ödön’s paintings in Kogart Gallery, Budapest

The unique exhibition is open till August, 1, 2010.

Márffy Ödön’s paintings transmit optimism to the visitors: harmony, the use of light and bright colors, freshness, and joy fill in the rooms through the works.

Márffy Ödön (1878-1959) was one of the most important representatives of the first Avant-garde movements in the 20th century Hungary. The artist visited Paris, where he spent several years with studying the art of Matisse and Cézanne. The effect of the French painters impressed Márffy’s point of view significantly; he used his experiences and fresh knowledge after having returned to Hungary. He became founder of innovative movements, such as “Nyolcak” or “KÚT”. Also, he befriended with the intellectuals of the era, for example Ady Endre, Rippl-Rónai, or Fülep Lajos. In 1920, he married Ady’s widow, Csinszka, whom he portrayed in his lyric paintings. Although his portfolio includes the effects and impressions of several different eras, the use of light colors, modern point of view, French elegance, and artistic richness signal all of his paintings in the collection.

The exhibition presents Márffy’s entire anthology of paintings. Some rarely seen and almost forgotten works of art are exhibited besides his well-known and famous pieces. More than a hundred paintings—including portrays, landscapes, lakeshore-scenes, home-interiors, and the world of circus— await visitors in Kogart Gallery, Budapest.

The Dreamers

2010-04-14T19:04:00.006+02:00

The Dreamers in Thália Theatre, Budapest

Bernardo Bertolucci, Oscar-winner director’s movie, The Dreamers is on stage for the very first time in Budapest.

Films, sexuality, devotion, and togetherness compose the body of story; however, all these are surrounded by the events of the student-riots of 1968 in Paris. Matthew is an American student, who gets to know Théo and Isabelle, the eccentric twins in Cinémathique. They soon become close friends and continues meeting even after the scandalous closing of the cinema. Actually, Matthew moves to the twins’ apartment, which becomes the location of strange and unusual events. The twins draw Matthew into their bizarre cinematic games, which are the fulfillments of their sexual desires as well. Thus, the trio starts to play a series of sexually filled games and bets, the stake of which becomes more and more serious. It is dangerous to play with eternity, isn’t it?

The play’s young director, Dicső Dániel's point of view was to create a modern, idealized piece, which keeps classical theatrical traditions but includes cinematic tools and representations. The innovative director deliberately avoided the nowadays fashionable vulgarity and aggressiveness; both of these are preferred in today’s theatrical world. However, intimacy, which is directors’ basic aim in modern plays, usually cannot be reached through offensiveness. The director used Bertolucci’s cultic film as a background to create the atmosphere of his presentation.

Desires, sexuality, devotion are the essence of the play, which are transmitted towards the viewers through the representation of three young people’s fears, happiness, and physical and mental pains. The borders of reality and imagination seem to fade, as the trio lives and play their bittersweet fate.

Degas to Picasso

2010-04-14T17:29:00.006+02:00

Selected Masterpieces from the Collection of the Pushkin Museum, Moscow

The uniquely significant exhibition is open till April 25, so for those who do not want to miss the special occasion, approximately 10 days left to visit the exposition in the Museum of Fine Arts. The show includes 55 paintings from the collection of Pushkin Museum, Moscow. Visitors can recognize the most famous pieces of Courbet, Corot, Degas, Manet, Monet, Renoir, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Cézanne, Matisse and Picasso and others, which are obviously well-known for most of us from art albums. Most of these works are presented in Hungary for the very first time.

The paintings supply visitors with a chronological overview of Impressionism, Symbolism, and the first avant-garde movements, such as Fauves and Cubists. Thus, guests can study a selection of French paintings from the late 19th century and from the beginning of the 20th century.

It is interesting to note, that the exhibited works of art originate from the collections of two exceptional Russian art collectors, Ivan Morozov and Sergei Shchukin. These two art dealers belonged to the new burgeois class of the late 19th century Russia and devoted a significant amount of their fortune and time to support unrecognized artists, who were not accepted by their contemporaries that time. Due to their graceful activity, masterpieces, like Picasso's Acrobat and Young Harlequin or Monet's Bridge over a Pond of Water Lilies await visitors now in the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest.

3 in 1 exhibition

2010-03-25T00:16:00.005+01:00

3 in 1 exhibition in Hungarian National Museum

‘Hungarian Press Photo Exhibition’ accompanied with the exhibition of ‘The World of Fashion in Pictures – Yesterday & Today’ and with a presentation about the history of photography
Hungarian Press Photo Exhibition, which is organized for the 28th time in Hungary, presents Hungarian press photos of 2009. The pictures represent various topics from several fields, such as arts, sports, or nature. Visitors can experience again the most exciting, dramatic, or joyful moments of the last year via the professional photos. Not only Hungarian internal affairs are displayed in the exhibition, such as locations of Roma-murders, verdict in the case of Olaszliszka, or inauguration of the new Prime Minister, but also the most significant international affairs are represented, for example Felipe Massa’s grave accident and everyday life in the war-stricken territories of Afghanistan. Some less serious topics include, for example, the most significant contemporary literary figures of Hungary, the 125-years-old Opera House, and the 120-years-old Hungarian National Circus.

Maybe we are not all familiar with the fact, that Hungary has provided the world with not only famous photographers but with genius and talented fashion photographers as well, whose works are displayed along with the aforementioned exhibition. The second photo-exhibition in the museum, which is entitled ‘The World of Fashion in Pictures – Yesterday & Today’ shows gorgeous fashion photos of the past century and nowadays as well. Visitors can have an insight both into the world of fashion and into the history of photography via the exhibition.

Finally, the exhibitions are completed with a thorough exposure on the history and the development of the different technologies in photography.

The exhibition is open till April 25th.

2010-03-13T19:42:00.001+01:00

Innovative open-air exhibition downstairs at Gödör

Enormous steam iron producing real steam and a huge plastic leg in nylon stockings among other grotesque objects at Erzsébet tér

Passersby can attend to a unique exhibition every day from March 8 to April 8 when they are walking down- or upstairs at Gödör Klub, Erzsébet tér. Not only is the location unusual for an exhibition, but its subject as well: several tools and equipments which have facilitated women’s life are displayed on the stairs to celebrate women and their role.

The exhibition was created to call attention to ladies and their status as a woman, as a wife and a mother. Although I am aware of the fact, that household gadgets play an important role in our life and enhance our everyday duties significantly, I cannot relate a vacuum cleaner or a washing machine to women’s role in the society and their celebration. So, why do huge household machines and cosmetic articles represent women and their roles?

I agree that the huge leg or the giant lipstick is a shockingly rare spectacle in the heart of the capital. Still, I think that the exhibition fails to transmit the creators’ original idea about showing women’s role and mission in the 20th and 21st centuries.

The exhibition is a surprising view but nothing else.

Fortune's Fools

2010-03-09T17:04:00.002+01:00

“Fortune’s Fools” (Sors Bolondjai)

Comedy in two parts in Madách Theatre, Budapest

4 people, 2 ladies and 2 gentlemen, 2 couples- it does not matter how we identify the main characters of Stroppel’s comedy. As humans, they live, love and sometimes, they even make mistakes. The play introduces the lives of Chuck and Gail, who are preparing to marry, and Jay and Bonnie, two seemingly hyper-independent characters, who are still unmarried, but their friends try their best to put them in touch with each other.

Spectators can have an inner view into the characters’ lives; they can observe the development of Chuck's and Gail’s relationship, their matrimonial conflicts after getting married. The other two characters’ personalities are also scrutinized with some critical aspect and sarcasm. The two couples’ fates are compared and contrasted by Stroppel in a wonderfully humorous and ironical way, ensuring viewers a fantastic entertainment.

In the end of the comedy, the characters are forced to realize that they have to accommodate to each in order to survive life and marriage. They also acknowledge that humor is the essence of life.

Sweet, sugar!, candy

2010-03-06T22:02:00.003+01:00

Hungary’s first design confectionary in Újpest

Sugar! shop combines fashion and art with cakes and sweeties; to visit the amazing store is an absolute must for people who are crazy for both candies and design. Although the idea is unique in Hungary, fashion and design candy stores are quite widespread in England, France, or in the U.S, where Horváth Eszter, former stylist, the owner of the shop travels often to collect more ideas and experiences to attract customers to her cute and sweet store.

Originally, she had been working as a stylist, for years, but she could not deny her family’s past and her talent in the art of confectionary; she decided to mix her experiences and ideas from both fields: Sugar! shop was born in 2004.

Sugar! shop’s artists have no fear of crazy ideas, they are able to use their imagination and experiences to create any kind of cake or candy, such as birthday cake imitating Dior high-hilled shoes or a Louis Vuitton bag for fashion addicts.

They either await their guests in Újpest to spend some splendid hours between the bombastic candies and forget about the worries of their everyday lives, or receive their orders for parties, birthdays or any special events.

For more information and sweetness please visit their website.

Glenn Brown's exhibition in Budapest

2010-03-06T20:27:00.002+01:00

"art as language"

Contemporary British painter's thorough exhibition in Ludwig Museum, Budapest

Glenn Brown is a contemporary British painter whose originality, in a paradox way, includes questioning the existence of originality. He often parodies and reproduces well-known and unknown artists' work of arts by comparing and contrasting different eras and techniques in a wonderfully ironical way. According to Brown, there is no 'originality' in painting; all works are related to each other as parts of the artistic canon. Due to his special approach to the interdepencies, he was once sued by the Dalí Foundation, because he copied and reworked some of Dalí's paintings among others.
The British artist wants to emphasize the interrelations among the different elements of pop culture while mixing various techniques and reproducing already existing paintings.

The exhibition is open till April 11 in Ludwig Museum, Budapest.

For further details please visit the museum's website.

Here, you will find some paintings of Brown as an appetizer.

Introduction

2010-03-03T00:01:00.000+01:00

Welcome Dear Followers,
I am going to inform you week by week about ANYTHING interesting which can be connected to Budapest and to the cultural life of the city.
If you are interested in spending your free time in Budapest, you will find some pieces of useful information each week, concerning theatre, museum, architecture, music, etc.
EVERYTHING which is hot in the city will be posted here and you are kindly invited to comment on the entries, if you feel like sharing what you have seen, lived or felt in Budapest.