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| The circus is coming to town |
After returning, I had some lunch and then went to the Museum of Modern Art (aka Palace of Arts although this Palace of Arts is different from the Palace of Arts I went to last weekend). Having the international teachers' card enabled me to pay only 250 HUF (forints) instead of the 1800 HUF normally charged for admission. Good thing because if I had paid 1800 HUF I would have been very disappointed at having spent my money on what I saw. The exhibitions at the museum are a number of very modern artists specializing in oil paintings, "sculptures", and video. Each room contained the art of different artists. In the first were some modern oil paintings. Although they were not my cup of tea, I could at least see that they were worthy of being exhibited. The next room contained the photographs of someone whose office was not particularly tidy. I'm not sure I could find anything interesting in seeing a computer keyboard on a desk with trash strewn on the floors around the desk. Granted the pictures were well processed, I could not find the subject of artistic interest. The next room had a loop of a movie of a man sitting on a train falling asleep. He would wake up, acknowledge the viewer, and then nod off again. Again, where's the art in that? The next room had a video of a woman's back that was shown for quite some time. Eventually the camera moved back to show her playing an organ (there was organ music playing on the video and it was her practicing a piece by Bach). Eventually all one could hear were the keys of the organ being clicked as they were pressed and there was no music to hear at all. Again, where's the art to that? The next room had a black car that was in an accident. Lights of different colors were shining on it. The last room contained photos and videos of people doing unusual things. I was not enamored with this museum, but I'm glad to have visited it.
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| Museum of Modern Art |
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| Side detail of Museum of Modern Art |
After leaving the museum I went to the park next to it to see some gigantic sculptures that I could see from the bus that took me to the museum. On the way, I noticed a very unusual modern building across the street.
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| Modern Building across street from Museum of Modern Art |
The first sculpture I saw was a huge "wheel". On closer examination, it was really a wheel in the center of which is an hour glass; there were two sections of the wheel that contained sand that presumably falls from the top triangle to the bottom one. This hour glass was not pouring sand when I saw it. But on closer examination, I could see that when the bottom triangular section is filled with sand, there were smaller wheels that enabled the entire wheel to be rotated 180 degrees so that the sand could once again fall.
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| Sculpture next to Museum of Modern Art (an hour glass is in the triangular regions) |
The next sculpture was interesting. It was really a huge pyramid that began in one corner with a bunch of posts placed here and there to form the outline of the pyramid but as the posts approached the other side of the pyramid, the posts got closer together to each other and eventually the pyramid became solid. Difficult to describe. Hopefully, you can see this in the picture below.
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| Giant Pyramid next to Museum of Modern Art |
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| Inside the Pyramid next to Museum of Modern Art |
"Interrogations took place in upstairs rooms at night. Suspects were prevented from sleeping for several nights, and in many cases were held without food and water. They employed every possible method of physical and psychological pressure on their victims. Facing the wall with their noses rammed against it, or with arms stretched out horizontally, sometimes for 10 - 12 hours. Beatings with truncheons were everyday affairs, as well as "physical exercises"; some were tortured with electric current, burning cigarettes, pliers. Detainees were not permitted to change their underwear, nor to take a bath, their daily ablutions could last a mere thirty seconds; they were not allowed to use towels, soap, toilet paper, toothpaste, tooth brushes, handkerchiefs. Prisoners were kept in cells with a light bulb shining day and night."Need I say more about the House of Terror? It certainly educated me (again) on the subjugation of Hungary by both the Nazis and the Soviet Communists, and has helped me understand the feeling of resignation I've heard Hungarians have concerning their history. I only hope that 1989 and forward prove to be a shining period of prosperity and contentment for my hosts.
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| House of Terror |
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| Inside the House of Terror (Pictures are victims in House of Terror) |
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| Inside House of Terror (Pictures on wall are of victims in House of Terror) |
After visiting the House of Terror, I decided to find a nice bookstore that a colleague told me about. The Alexandra Book Store is located on Andrassy ut across the street from the Opera House (and toward Husok tere a bit). Entering the store it looked very similar to a Barnes and Nobles Book Store, but ascending the escalator ended all the similarities. On the second floor is one of the most elegant coffee shops I've ever seen (comparable to the New York Coffee House I visited two weeks ago). I can hardly wait to find someone else to visit this coffee house with and actually sit in it for a cup of coffee and dessert. As you can see from the picture below, it was quite crowded and there was piano music that served as background music (I believe that the piano was a player piano but I can't be sure).
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| Alexandra Book Store Coffee Shop |
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| Alexandra Book Store Coffee Shop |
And so ends another day of exploring. More to follow.
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