English

New, alternative, underground, experimental: these words spring to mind with Blood Mountain Foundation, a much needed new initiative in Budapest. A trip to the headquarters of this non-profit arts organisation in Verhalom street (loosely translated from its namesake location), will grant any visitor an experience akin to those in London an New York. To catch a glimpse of the international arts scene it is enough to simply catch a tram to Buda. Finally a cultural meeting point on the right side of the Danube.

The key purpose of Blood Mountain is to initiate cultural exchange by expert international standards. The organisation comprises a board of trustees, whose expertise and diverse interests relate to the region in one-way or another. These include Todd Bishop from MoMA, Edwin Heathcote, architecture critic of The Financial Times and Reka Pigniczky, AP’s local correspondent.

“This is a largely Anglo-Saxon model. The trustees are here to facilitate the organisation with their specialist skills and existing experiences with similar organisations abroad” – we are informed by Jade Niklai, Director of the Foundation. She adds further, that the selected trustees cover a wide cross-section of the cultural industry.

The first resident-artist is Cuban born Diango Hernandez, who stayed in Budapest for four weeks to conceive his solo exhibition. “Diango Hernandez studied industrial design at Havana’s Superior Institute of Design, and prompted by the absence of opportunities to practice as a designer, he began to collect and present quintessentially Cuban objects in various exhibitions. An example of such a work included the ‘Lada Limousine’, which consisted of two Lada cars welded together, so members of two families could be transported with lower fuel usage. In this context, objects were re-appropriated to create new collective objects. Diango attracted the attention of many and travelled to Europe for the first time with the help of a scholarship from the Ludwig Foundation in 1998” – Jade continues.

Matters of the built environment - architecture, locations and relations between space and city – are lead topics in Diango’s practice. He is particularly interested in the relationship between art and design. The exhibition, ‘a kiss, a hat, a stamp’, is a meeting point between Budapest and his native Cuba. The exhibition is staged where the artist lived and worked during his stay in Budapest, allowing the gallery to exist at once an exhibition space, an artist studio and private living quarters. The set up is reminiscent of the domestic theatres, which characterised 1970s creative practices, in which audiences were positioned in an unusual, intimate environment and the possibility of face-to-face exchange with the artist was readily available.

A condition of the residency programme is that artists must present new work inspired and produced during their stay in Budapest. “A key component of the Foundation is to be site-specific. The resulting exhibitions must reflect the participating artists’ experiences in Budapest. We focus on artists who represent an interest for
Budapest - the cultural sector and society as a whole - and at once can take something away from here themselves” – Jade continues.

It is a great challenge to produce high-quality work under such a time constraint [one month]. In the current show, we also encounter the works of local milliner Valéria Fazekas, used furniture elements, original MTI (Hungarian Press Association) photographs from the socialist times, along with a projection of aged Hungarian stamps. A mirror frame, a table leg and old oil lamps are transformed in to artworks. But how does this connect Budapest to Cuba? The correlation is socialism. It is not an accident that Hungarian stamps, depicting tropical motifs, are comparable to those of Cuba.

Part of the installation is a large bookshelf, which the artist interpreted metaphorically as a symbol of intellectual pursuit. On the bottom shelf he positioned ideology - represented by original MTI prints - and above. the hats are positioned as tokens for the people and lives symbolised below. All hats by Valéria Fazekas are unique in appearance, yet appear as a collective. Marked by their monotone, grey and black appearance. Jade informs us, that the two artists did not know each other before the collaboration; their participation was a fortuitous meeting of two minds.

Education is also an important part of Blood Mountain’s profile. For 6 to 12 year olds, art educator Panni Varadi runs various art classes with the participation of contemporary artists. A particular theme or technique is taken as the starting point of these events, such as pop art or papier-mache sculpture. An older audience is also addressed through various workshops, such as the one Diango held recently for secondary art students at the British International School in Budapest.

The artist-in-residence programme will support three visiting artists a year. The next resident is Australian-Albanian Asim Memishi. Similarly, he will produce and showcase new work based on his experiences in Budapest. The Foundation helps the forging of relations between visiting and local artists and in the future, plans to develop a similar programme abroad to support local and regional talent. “It is in this cultural context that genuine cultural exchange can be fully realised”, Jade concludes.

The exhibition can be viewed by appointment until January 30. An artist talk takes place on Tuesday 18 January in English.