Tutankhamun: a superstar in Budapest

A sensational discovery in 1922 turned the unknown pharaoh Tutankhamun into a superstar. In 1922, the archaeologist Howard Carter discovered the burial chambers of the ancient Egyptian king with their vast treasures - an event that caused a worldwide sensation. Eighty-seven years later, a spectacular exhibition makes it possible for everyone to play the role of discoverers and experience Tutankhamun, his tomb and his treasures first hand. The traveling exhibition is visiting Hungary for the first time and you can visit it at Budapest's VAM Design Center until April 25, 2010.
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From Botticelli to Titian

More than 110 masterpieces of two centuries of Italian art, among them several paintings by the most famous Italian geniuses representing various schools and stylistic trends, are on display at the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts in an exhibition that should not be missed. The display titled From Botticelli to Titian, Masterpieces of Two Centuries of Italian Art, can be visited from October 28, 2009 to February 14, 2010.
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A jubilee year for the Hungarian Opera

With about fifty opera and ballet productions–eight in premiere and 5 revivals- included in the programme of the 2009/2010 season the Hungarian State Opera House celebrates the 125th anniversary of its inauguration and promises many more exciting years to come. Running until the end of June 2010 the new season offers a wide repertoire that satisfies the most diverse demands with stage productions which cater for the tastes of different generations.
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Posters for a socialist market

Marketing and advertisement is one of the fundamental tools of the market economy in capitalist societies that is used as a consumerism booster for commercial goods and services. Nevertheless, it was exactly that same tool which communist regimes in post-war Europe were using for exactly the same reasons in their state-controlled economies. An exhibition at the Hungarian Museum of Trade and Tourism in Budapest from October 6 to November 23, reminds us how commercial posters were used in the socialist period between 1945 and 1989.
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Händel and Haydn remembered

Exactly 250 ago German composer George Frideric Händel died at the age of 74 in London. Fifty years later Austrian composer Joseph Haydn was dying in Vienna at the age of 77. To commemorate these two anniversaries, the Budapest Baroque Festival is dedicating its fourth edition to the two great composers with fourteen evening concerts at Budapest’s St. Michael’s Church, from September 17 to September 11.
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Mazel tov Budapest!

One of the biggest and certainly most interesting annual Jewish festivals held in Europe is organized in Hungary in the last week of summer giving everyone the best opportunity to get to know a rich culture that is still not very well known among the non-Jewish Europeans. By now, the Jewish Summer Festival is one of Hungary’s most important, most visited and most interesting cultural art events. Join it from August 30 to September 7, get a glimpse into millennia-old traditions and enjoy artists and performers who will offer you a once in a lifetime experience.
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Turner and Italy

For the first time the Hungarian public has the opportunity to admire an independent exhibition of works by one of the most significant landscape painters of the 19th century and indeed perhaps in the entire history of art. The J.M.W. Turner exhibition at the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts, which opened July 15 runs through October 25 under the title Turner and Italy and displays over 80 works presented chronologically to show the career of the artist from his early landscapes to his near-abstract, late pictures.
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Holy Land exhibit awes Budapest

This is probably the top exhibition of the year at Budapest’s Museum of Fine Arts and missing it while in the Hungarian capital would be a terrible mistake! Spanning a period of 9,000 years, artifacts from the collection of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem make up the exhibition The Heritage of the Holy Land - Treasures from the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, on display until September 6, 2009. Exhibits include unique pieces such as a fragment of the Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as works by Rembrandt, Chagall and Rodin.
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How Hungarians see the Finns?

Ask any Hungarian and they’ll tell you they feel related to the Finns. How is this very special relationship between the Hungarians and the Finns defined and explained? Two nations separated by geography but connected in heart and with common linguistic roots are trying to find some answers to the far too many questions that come to mind when referring to them. In Budapest a very interest is attempting to give some answers. Visit it at the Museum of Ethnography until the end of November 2010.
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Robert Capa returns to Budapest

Universally regarded as the greatest war photographer of all time, Robert Capa is known across the world for his shots of the landings of the Second World War, of the civil war in Spain and of the liberation of Paris. From July 3 to October 11, 2009, the Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art (Lumu) in Budapest pays tribute to the Hungarian-born artist with an exhibition of 937 pictures from the so-called Robert Capa Master Selection III bought by the Hungarian National Museum last year from the International Center of Photography, together with 48 original prints by Robert Capa.
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