ABSTRACT

The Budapest Ludwig Museum’s director Barnabas Bencsik’s five-year term had recently come to an end. The atmosphere in and around Hungarian cultural institutions had become increasingly closed. Protestors of all ages, including both emerging and recognised artists, intellectuals and other members of the cultural elite turned the stairway of the Ludwig Museum into their headquarters and refused to leave. Several curatorial staff members at the Ludwig Museum left their jobs in protest at the government’s totalitarian politics. Ludwig’s obsession with the gloss of Pop matches with his extravagance, daring announcements and close relationships with the leading political elite. The transfer of Ludwig’s private collection to Hungary can best be understood as a form of trade. Despite Ludwig’s controversial measures, the collection in Budapest shows that next to leading propaganda artists, he could also buy pieces that involved positions of artistic resistance.