New Debrecen art center offers unprecedented treasures

The "99 Years" exhibition at Debrecen's new cultural center is helping breathe new life into eastern Hungary's cultural landscape. The works are selected from one of the country's most valuable contemporary art collections, the Antal-Lusztig Collection.

Despite being Hungary's second largest cities, Debrecen is often forgotten, particularly when it comes to culture. The Modern and Contemporary Art Center (Modem), which opened in Debrecen in October 2006, is helping change all that. The modern square building in the heart of the town contains Hungary's largest exhibition hall and is being hailed as a major breakthrough for the city. It aims to not only to break Budapest's cultural hegemony, but also to become the cultural center of a region that covers parts of Slovakia, Romania and the Ukraine.

The Antal-Lusztig Collection was founded by Sámuel Lusztig and inherited by his gradson Péter Antal, a lawyer from Debrecen, who continued to collect paintings. The collection includes works by Hungarian luminaries such as Csontváry, Ferenczy, Rippl-Rónai, Uitz, Kassák, Kondor, Moholy-Nagy and members of the prolific artists' colony at Nagybánya. The Modem is especially proud to own seven important early works by Moholy-Nagy.

A current exhibition entitled "99 év" ("99 Years") showcases nearly 400 works from the 3,500-piece collection, which Antal offered to the city as a "long-term deposit." The exhibition will later travel to Finland and possibly Italy, spreading the reputation of Hungarian artists abroad.

In Hungary, 99% of museums are owned by the state or local governments, and this is another reason why the Modem is unusual. It is owned by the City of Debrecen, and is the only large exhibition hall in the country built without help from the state or the European Union. It cost Ft 3 billion (€11,950,000).

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