Today i attended two exhibitions, one in the National Museum of Nature Sciences, about the ice ages (and also there was another one about predators), and the Ludwig Museum’s three floors–on the first an exhibit of Agnes Denes, on the second the Keith Haring one and on the third the collection of the museum.
The ice ages exhibition (Jégkorszakok in Hungarian—and in plural) was aimed at a much younger audience in my opinion, much like what i experienced in the nature sciences museums of Chicago. It was highly interactive, with a couple of really interesting details on the past climate changes of our planet—for example, did you know our climate is so nicely moderate only because of the ice age not so long ago? (It’s “not so long ago” only in geological time scale, naturally. That means about ten thousand years.) In the age of the dinosaurs it’s supposed to have been a lot warmer. At the last stages of the exhibition were the models of ice age animals, huge predators (saber-toothed tiger, hyenas and co) and even larger herbivores (mammoths, ancestory of deer and horses), and i stood there thinking if i’d had a chance against such an animal. I ended up with the decision that if i lived then i probably would be a lot more muscular than i am now, so a precise kick in the face of the wolf would stop it for sure, and with a large piece of wood or stone i could crush the head of a tiger too. I wonder. Have read not so long about a man killing a brown bear so—i guess it’s not hopeless then.
Keith Haring on the other hand at first made me laugh and then disgusted me. In the first part there were his–in my opinion—better drawings and paintings and a sculpture too (it was an altarpiece), those that became popular not because of his name but of their own worth (such as the red dog with the two green persons and others that’d be more complicated to describe), but the other half was… Well, at the first few pictures, funny. Then embarrassing and finally disgusting–at first it was funny to see an angel having sex with a dog. But then every single one was about something like this: men masturbating, giving blowjobs, having sex in the most complicated positions with each other and with dogs, and phallic symbols in every single painting. It’s okay if someone’s gay. It’s also okay if a gay artist’s exhibition contains pictures of his sexuality—and i said contains, not consists of. After the tenth or so such picture it’s also not only disgusting but boring also.
The exhibition of Agnes Denes, artist with hungarian origin wasn’t bad at all, but it wasn’t extraordinary either. (The Keith Haring one was extraordinary, but in a wrong way.) There were a few quite impressing works, highly designed drawings with strict geometrical structure and deep philosophical meanings. Not easy to grasp those without the explanation sheets. I could only recall one drawing that i really liked, a twisted pyramid of sixteen thousand stick figures, all different—and hand drawn! Amazing.
On the third floor there were some really great works and some that surprised me a lot. For example, right by the entrance, two Picasso paintings greet the visitors. Quite unexpected, since not advertised at all (much like the Vasarely exhibition i stumbled upon accidentally in the basement of a gallery). I’m ashamed i can’t recall the names of the artists the works of whom we’d seen, but there were way too many for me to learn. There was a painting that i thought i knew, but it turned out to be something else, though highly resembling the one i’ve seen sometime, somewhere. It was a modern, with colourful stripes, if you’d show me i’d recognise it, but i couldn’t recall neither its title nor who painted it.
On the way there i started to read the Gospel of John. On the way home i bought myself milk.
