One of the most important meeting places of the underground before the regime change is coming back to life

The BME College of Architects is organizing a two-day series of programs on the weekend of April 26-27: the purpose of this is to take stock of the heritage of B28-30 through joint thinking, discussion, exhibitions, and music.

Bercsényi was one of the most important cultural institutions and meeting places of the Budapest underground before the regime change. In the fall of 1963, the Bercsényi 28-30 newspaper, initially published in only 100 copies, was published here for the first time.

The name came from the location, as the dormitory of the Faculty of Architecture of the Technical University operated at 28-30 Bercsényi Street. At first, interviews, discussion materials, and plan documentation were published – among others, edited by László Rajk, Péter Reimholz, Imre Makovecz, Bálint Nagy, Tamás Nagy – but many central writings of international architectural theory were also published for the first time in Hungarian, for example by Yona Friedmann, Aldo Rossi and Robert from Venturi. Later, performance documentations and exhibition reports and reviews were also published about, among others, Tibor Hajas, Miklós Erdély, Imre Bak, Gábor Bódy, Dóra Maurer, and many key creators of Hungarian unofficial art.

By the 1980s, the magazine Bercsényi 28-30 had become one of the most significant platforms for Hungarian neo-avant-garde art and architecture opposed to doctrinal modernism. The Bercsényi Klub operated in parallel with the magazine, where more and more often exhibition opportunities were provided for those who could not appear at representative, official exhibition venues. Two of Tibor Hajas’ cult performances took place in this space, but the Illés group, Syrius a Kex, or later Európa Kiadó, János Másik, Balaton, and Bítószág regularly performed here.

The commemorative events are now also leaving the spaces of the vocational college, so several exhibitions will be moved to the abandoned and empty business premises of the Móricz Zsigmond körtér underground. A comprehensive historical exhibition will present the magazine B28-30 and the Bercsényi Club, in one of the empty spaces under the underpass – in co-production with the 1111 Gallery, which enriches the cultural life of the 11th district – the exhibition NahTe: Bercsényi 28-30 1970-2024 by János Vető will be presented.

The career of János Vető has accompanied the history of the Bercsényi Club since the end of the 1960s. He was an active participant in the Hajas biography – in 1980 he was also in the car that had an accident in which Hajas, nicknamed Biki by his friends, died. The photos presented at the exhibition and the video of Tibor Hajas’ 1980 Vigil and Hajas Zürich performances bring to life the spirit of the place and time, and the artistic strategies of creators balancing on the border between the tolerated and forbidden categories of state socialism.

By the way, all of this has now become classic art and art history: the current chief curator of the 2017 Venice Biennale, Christine Macel from Paris, also selected Tibor Hajas for the central exhibition – the great figure of the Hungarian neo-avant-garde, who died young, was given a prominent (half) hall by the body painter photographed by János Vető , with his body art series paintings. János Munkácsy Mihály Award-winning photographer, musician, and visual artist Vető János Munkácsy is one of the defining figures of the Hungarian underground, the founder of the band Trabant, and a member of Európa Kiadó for a few years. Tibor Hajas’s friend, photographer, colleague and co-creator from 1976-1980, whom they met in Ferihegy in 1974, at the age of 22, at the airport farewell party of Tamás Szentjóby, who had just been expelled from the country. In the 1980s, he was known as a member of the creative duo Zuzu-Vető (Lóránt Zuzu Méhes – János Vető).

The exhibition will open on April 26 at 7 p.m. in the circular underpass and will be visible through the glass portal of the empty room. The opening event will be followed by several accompanying programs and concerts, such as a film club on Saturday afternoon, where Péter Lichter’s film Empty Horses will be screened – in which the characters of two unavoidable Hungarian/American directors, Mihály Kertész and Gábor Bódy, meet. (The film experiments with associative montage throughout the film, with scenes cut from hundreds of films.)

There will be a round table discussion (on April 27, i.e. early afternoon on Saturday, in the large lounge of Bercsényi, where the participants will talk about newspaper editing, the atmosphere of the 70s and 80s and the cultural role of the college: architect Lajos Hartvig – university professor (Bánáti and Hartvig, BME department of residential design); architect Anna Julianna (Brettschneider Foundation); set designer János Taksás, who was a former editor of B28-30. The concerts will take place in the club room of the college, in Gödör , the Balaton band and Ági and the boys will perform.