Iparterv 50+, Ludwig Museum, Budapest, 31 January-31 March 2019

1968-1969 is known for its many cultural and social turning points: the Paris protests, the Prague Spring, the Woodstock Festival… Less famous was Iparterv: a short-lived art show in Hungary.

Iparterv was held under the influence of György Aczél, an official in the ruling Communist Party who took a keen interest in the Hungarian art scene. Although each of its two parts only lasted a few days, Iparterv changed the course of the country’s art, and its effects are still felt today. To celebrate the 50th anniversary, the Ludwig is hosting Iparterv 50+.

The exhibition aims to reproduce the artistic environment of Hungary in the late 60s with the help of contemporary artists, in order to explore Iparterv’s legacy. Held in the State Architectural Office, the original Iparterv introduced the “first generation of the neo-avantgarde”. These new painters combined the geometric, abstract, block-like patterns of Western abstract artists with unusual colour schemes, such as red-on-green and neon.

Come to complement your knowledge of Western modern art with that of the Eastern bloc. Because it remembers an unusually political artistic event, the exhibition will intrigue you if you’re interested in 20th-century history.

To remember György Aczél is to remember that life under communism wasn’t all rigid repression and greyness. Here and there were figures of great idealism and vision, whose legacies live on in contemporary art.

Jonny Elling