Bartók’s work offers countless points of contact for reflections and interpretations through visual and sound art. In addition to considering the musical legacy, the exhibiting artists seek to establish vantage points for the examination of the oeuvre through a scrutiny of cultural anthropological and media-historical evidence, as well as of personal material related to the composer, while they also assess Bartók’s influence on his own age and our times.

The chief ambition of the exhibition is not to reinterpret the oeuvre, but to initiate a dialogue with it, attempting to approach the history of the influence of an immensely important body of work from the present, through possible contact points. Throughout the world, Bartók’s name has become synonymous with modernity, his work as a composer is part of the general knowledge, his activity as a scholar, theorist, and collector of music enriches universal culture. For decades, works of art that reflect on Bartók have attested to his cultural historical significance and embeddedness in society.

This exhibition explores and subjects to further interpretation the image of Bartók as a persistent cultural topos transmitted through the ages. Besides neo-avant-garde classics (Dóra Maurer, Tamás Konok, László Lakner, Sándor Pinczehelyi), most of the exhibits are newly made works, whose creators, over 30 in all, set off from conceptual vantage points between visual art, science, and music. In terms of genre and technique, most of the exhibits are mixed (hybrid) works, and the exhibition as a whole is marked by the prominent presence of new artistic media.

The exhibition reveals the participating artists’ own positions through such historical, personal, technical, and cultural motifs that are related to Bartók. Several of the exhibits inquire into the internal structure and codes of Bartók’s way of structuring.

Many of the artists are interested in converting musical elements into linguistic or visual signs, establishing correlations, translating or replacing the codes in other systems. Several of the geometric-abstract works—which are based on a serial logic and comprise minimal visual signs and small gestures—depict musical structures, while others join the narrative on the influence of Bartók’s works at apparently more distant points.

There are a great many interactive works that invite the visitors to actively engage with them, and to become participants in the act of creation, owing to the immediacy of the experience.

Ludwig Museum realized the exhibition in collaboration with C3 – Centre for Culture and Communication, and the Hermina Gallery Creative Group.

The display is accompanied by diverse events in the sister arts, along with lectures, guided tours, presentations, and concerts.

The exhibition is an event of the CAFe Budapest Contemporary Arts Festival, and has been realized as a part of the Bartók 135 Memorial Year.

Open: October 8, 2016 – January 29, 2017

Venue: Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art - Müpa Budapest
Address: 1095 Budapest, Komor Marcell u. 1.
Phone: (+36 1) 555 3444

More: http://lumu.hu/site.php?inc=kiallitas&kiallitasId=957&menuId=43