1998

Freeze Frames of Communism
October 21, 1998 - December 18, 1998

A multimedia exhibition exploring the now half-forgotten medium of slidefilm ("dialfilm").

The golden age of slidefilm in the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe was in the fifties and sixties.  In addition to catering to the “natural” audience of the medium with adventure stories exalting pioneer morality and animal fables symbolically addressing issues of “socialism”, the authors of slidefilms also targeted grownups with their didactic works.  Thus, the golden age of slidefilms produced a mass of silly tales about the emancipated communist woman working in the factory, the tricks and glorious successes of hog-breeding in socialist cooperative farms, heroic Hungarian sailors revealing a counter-revolutionary conspiracy, and the wise peasant and his son battling the potato beetles.

The exhibition...

 
Prague spring, Prague fall
September 10, 1998 - October 11, 1998

The exhibition places the reforms in Prague in the context of the events that took place world-wide in 1968, and thus focuses on events that have been forgotten, or details newly discovered about this last attempt to create a socialist utopia in Europe. The lost world of Prague Spring is brought to life in this multimedia exhibition which includes rare photographs, archival materials, contemporary film news, music and posters. The barricades of Paris' Latin Quarter, Polish police forces brutally crushing student demonstrations in Poland, and the battles fought in Vietnam and elsewhere in the Third World serve as a backdrop for the events in Prague. In addition, our exhibition refutes the legend of the bloodless invasion of Czechoslovakia, the fable of János Kádár's unwillingness to take part, and will critically examine the mythology...

 
IHF
June 18, 1998 - August 30, 1998

An exhibition about the 23 years of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights Movement.

 
The portrait of Roloff Beny
April 25, 1998 - May 25, 1998
 
Fifty Years Ago It Was a Hundred Years Ago - The Interpretation of the 1848 Hungarian Revolution and Freedom Fight
March 12, 1998 - April 10, 1998

This multi-media exhibition revealed the various ways in which the1848 Hungarian revolution and war of independence had been remembered, celebrated, interpreted and represented in Hungary over the last 50 years. The narrative started with the year 1948, when the Hungarian Communist Party seized power. The centennial festivities of that year - directed by the Party -- transformed the memory of 1848 into an early, heroic manifestation of communist ideals. The 1956 uprising denied that image by holding up the events of 1848 as the shining example of Hungarians' fight against foreign and domestic oppression and the legendary motivation and courage of the "March Youth" to defy authority.

In the years following the failure of the 56 uprising, the celebration of 1848 became a delicate and potentially dangerous issue - the spontaneous,...