The Charm of the “Other Modernism”

Text: Éva Bajkay

Exhibition interior in the Collegium Hungaricum, Vienna, Design and photo: Árpád Fákó

The central museum of Austrian art, the Belvedere devoted an exhibition of new perspectives at the end of to the association of artists named after Josef Hagen innkeeper, the short name of which is Hagenbund. It was not the works of the members but the network of nexus that was researched with a new approach focussing on Central Europe by involving Czech, Polish and Hungarian art historians specialized in this topic, among them the author of this study. The result is an encyclopaedic catalogue documenting 250 exhibitions including important Hungarian works displayed then as well as documentary photos. The six Hungarian artists presented in the Hagenbund not only as guests but also as regular members was associated with this large-scale event in the Collegium Hungaricum. The study below gives a survey of this forgotten multilateral nexus.