The Ludwig Museum in Budapest

One of the most exciting parts of our vacation plan was to visit different museums. In Budapest we had the opportunity to visit the Ludwig Museum a wonderful representative of contemporary art. This Museum consists of artworks collected by the renowned collector Peter Ludwig from around the world. Ludwig was a great collector known for his passion for art. He had a keen interest not only in contemporary art but also in antiques, old American art and ancient Chinese artifacts. But unlike other collectors Ludwig always aimed to share his artworks with others.That's why he established museums in many cities.

The Ludwig Museum is located in the Palace of Arts in Budapest. We could easily reach this magnificent building on the banks of the Danube River. By taking tram line 2 from Margit Bridge in the city center you can almost reach the museum's doorstep. The museum is generally open for visits between 10:00 am and 8:00 pm and it is closed on Mondays. I recommend checking the information before visiting because there may be occasional changes on holidays. The admission fee varies depending on the exhibitions you want to visit but usually a combined ticket is more economical. We paid 2400 forints per person (approximately $7) to explore the entire three floors of the museum.

The building looked quite large from the outside,but we were able to see everything in about 2 hours. This is because the Palace of Arts houses a large concert hall and the museum is limited to only this section.

The museum has a total of three floors excluding the ground floor. The first two floors are dedicated to temporary exhibitions while the third floor houses the museum's permanent collection. When you enter the glassdoor hall, you need to hand over your ticket to the attendant, scan the barcode and get it stamped to indicate which floor you are on. Then you can freely wander around the hall for as long as you want, visit the shops accompanying each exhibition and purchase souvenirs related to the artworks you see.

During our visit to Budapest we came across an exhibition called "Whale Turning into a Submarine" on the first floor of the Ludwig Museum. The exhibition included artworks by artists from different countries in the past 10-15 years. The exhibition had different blocks, the first one showcased works progressing in parallel from artists of different countries and the second one intelligently included different themes within a large exhibition.

Btw it was possible to get postcard-sized photos printed from the exhibition for free and I took a few as souvenirs. I am carefully keeping them. I'm not sending them anywhere.

The third floor is the permanent exhibition of the Budapest Museum displaying artworks belonging to Peter Ludwig. Since the museum is Hungarian it mostly features works by Hungarian artists,but there are also well-known representatives of modern culture.

The permanent collection seemed quite ordinary to me perhaps because art has become conditionally contemporary. What is actually presented is like following the artistic movements of past years.All techniques have reached the masses and started to be replicated (like Tarkovsky or Dogme 95) so it may not be very exciting without understanding who did it first.

As for the things I liked I lean towards minimalism conceptual writings, slogans, that's modern art. Situations on social media, collections of quotes, company slogans, ultimately writings on fences. Currently slogans and mottos are what turn human interaction to the maximum level and there is more to the words used behind these sentences than their semantic value.

I think the museum is beautiful: large halls, wide stairs and no one following you or constantly asking questions. They respond with a "Of course" to questions about taking photos which is now a rare case. The Ludwig Museum not only serves as an exhibition space but also has its own library and conference hall as an art center. Here conferences, seminars, workshops and meetings with artists take place, everything that should be present in a big city and a large museum is available here.

For those interested in modern art and those who don't want to go somewhere far from the center there is also the Mucsarnok Exhibition Hall in Heroes Square in Budapest, where you can see many interesting things.