Félreérthetetlen mondatok - Az újragondolt gyűjtemény (Ludwig Múzeum, Budapest, 2011)

The exhibition entitled Unmistakable Sentences. The collection revisited aims to offer a cross­­section of the collection of the Ludwig Museum-Museum of Contemporary Art Budapest, estab­lished twenty years ago and growing continuously since, which concentrates first and foremost on the Central-Eastern European region's own cultural identity, emphasising the universal validity of this common historical and cultural heritage. With this exhibition concept, the Ludwig Museum connects with the international shift in empha­sis launched several years ago by the contemporary art museums of the wider region (such as, e.g., the Moderna Galerija in Ljubljana, MSU Zagreb and Muzeum Sztuki in Lodz) in their exhibition and acquisitions praxis. Owing to international research programmes, exhibition collaborations, publicationsand conferences that have become increasingly intensive, the region's contemporary art of the recent past and present has gained increasing space and focus within the collections and programmes of the most significant international institutions in the recent period. While the process of treating the visual art accomplishments realised during the recent past-in the suffocating cultural-political climate of Socialism-began during theyears after the political changes, the coherent rethinking of newerfacts that have meanwhile come to lightand previously unknown details of artistic oeuvres, asserting impartial, scholarly aspects of the significant artistic processes, has become increasingly imperative. Due to the well-known socio-political situation, it has finally become obvious that everything that became public knowledge over the past twenty years demands more concentrated attention than it has received until now, and that the comprehensive processing of the past five decades, and the systematic rethinking of the region in its entirety must be carried out. And we owe this not only to ourselves, as with this revealing and suppletory work, the global art canon is enriched: by the fact that these intellectual and artistic achievements are made internationally known, the previously laid emphases may shift elsewhere, and these displacements may inevitably result in a revision of the universal canon. As an art collector, Peter Ludwig imagined contemporary art during the time of opposition to the Cold War of the eighties as a catalyst for communication between the various social systems. The series of institutions he established also demonstrated this, as he cooperated with the local institutional system, adjusted to local relations, setting up his first institution on this side of the Iron Curtain in Budapest. His acquisitions praxis spanning divergent social systems, and his belief in the universality of contemporary art, are exemplary for us. The collection of the Ludwig Museum continues this heritage, as it represents the necessity for the processing and rethinking of the artistic recent past. Barnabás Bencsik • Director

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