Műcsarnok / Kunsthalle, Budapest: Enthropy of a City

I always enjoy a lot visiting my lovely hometown, Budapest. Apart from the obvious reasons of seeing my family and friends, I'm also deeply enthusiastic about visiting some of the greatest museums the city has to offer. This time I chose an exhibition at Műcsarnok (Kunsthalle) that sounded rather interesting - it showcases video installation works about urban space of the private Julia Stoschek Collection travelling from Duesseldorf, Germany.

Műcsarnok

Műcsarnok is a beautiful building itself, situated at the popular Hősök tere (Hero's Square) neighbouring Budapest's number one art gallery (my opinion), the Szépművészeti Múzeum (Museum of Fine Arts).

The entry fee is still bearable measuring by my UK wallet (equivalent to £6) and for this price I get to see three separate exhibitions: apart from the main there's an artwork of the Indian Shilpa Gupta and a collection related to new art techniques from Duliskovich Bazil in the basement by which I wasn't too impressed.

Hősök tere / Hero's Square

The Entropy of a City displays a number of videos from a selection of international artists around the subject of human interaction into urban space. I was also fascinated by the artworks' arrangement in the huge exhibition space: using tools of minimalism it reflected itself to the subject of the collection.

Many of the exhibiting artists are qualified architects offering a unique view of the subject. My highlights are the works of Gordon Matta-Clark who lived in New York, Tobias Zielony German artist and Cao Fei based in China.

Matta-Clark's videos documented the process of building modification he carried out on houses soon to be demolished. In one of them he cut out conical shapes of a Parisian building's wall (Conical Intersect - Program Seven, 1975). In another he cut out squares from a house creating the shape of the bingo form (Bingo, 1971). I was amazed by the idea of removing the original function of the building (housing, protection from the weather, etc.) and creating a new artistic view in front of audience of occasional passers by.

Artwork arrangement in the space // In the background Matta-Clark's video

I particularly liked Tobias Zielony's The Letter (Der Brief, 2013) video although I didn't see its close fit into the urban space concept - it's rather related to social matters. It documents a report with two prostitutes who talk about an occasion when a client fell in love with their colleague and being rejected he became abusive.

Cao Fei's video, photo and sculpture installation (Whose Utopia, 2006) explore the life of lightbulb factory workers by using Second Life, the popular online game where players create their character to live an imagined life.

Museum interior

 
There's quite a big variety of artistic views and concepts at the exhibition with stronger and weaker works. Some of the videos weren't running at the time of visit (that's a shame!). The information on artists and artworks displayed on the walls are sufficient, unlike in the accompanying leaflet which is rather poor both in content and the English translation.     

All in all, I would recommend visiting this unique collection to art lovers who find interesting land art and urban space concept. Also, it's a great occasion to find out more about contemporary artists linked to a pleasant walk on Andrássy út or in Városliget (City Park).

The exhibition is on display until 23. Feb. 2014.