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Special Hand|Craft|Art Exhibit at Mucsarnok in Budapest

Since both the Applied Arts Museum and the Ethnographic Museum are closed, I was thrilled when I went to the Mucsarnok today (on Heroes Square, opposite the also-closed Museum of Fine Arts) and discovered that the current exhibition covers revived handcrafts. I spent about two hours there. A variety of media are on display, including works in pottery, wood, leather and metal. There are also hundreds of painted eggs, but the most common medium is fiber: embroidery, weaving and felting. The quality is very high, and although the techniques used are generally traditional, a lot of the objects are contemporary in style. Labels have been translated into English--something you can't always count on with temporary exhibitions.

The exhibit runs through August 20. The museum is open Tue, Wed, Fri, Sat and Sun 10-6 and Thu noon-8. It is closed on Mondays and on May 22.

Metro Line 1 to Hosok Tere. Free with Budapest Card. I've seen the entry fee variously listed at 2200 Ft and 2900 Ft, so I'm not sure what the deal is.

Posted by
2688 posts

Thanks for mentioning this—I’m going to have to check this out when I’m there—10 days and counting. A focus on fiber arts makes it even more appealing.

Posted by
28055 posts

Glad to help, Christa. I'm looking forward to the museum-related craft event you mentioned in an earlier post that comes up in about 2 weeks, which will be toward the end of my time in Hungary. In fact, I scheduled my trip so that I'd be sure of being in Budapest for that. I love looking at crafts. It's too bad that glass and ceramics are heavy; I'm rarely able to buy anything. And after last year's mustard purchases in Dijon (even tiny glass jars are heavy), I'm trying to avoid thinking about Hungarian paprika.

Posted by
20159 posts

Acraven, glad you are on top of things here. Still entertaining our guest and it's a big help. We just haven't played tourist in years. It's one of the reasons that when we travel some place new I put more weight on the perspectives of tourists then I do residents. I live in the US in one of the top 10 US tourist destinations and never know about what's going or the changes in town unless a tourist tells me. I'm not a resident here but we spend so much time here that there is some of the same effect.

Posted by
2688 posts

I've got the same problem with always wanting to bring home heavy items--I can't wait to get to Ecseri flea market again, I collect rustic Komlos pottery from the 1930s and the place is teeming with it. Fortunately I like the small figures, 5" or so at most, but they're made from a thick red clay so very solid. The prices are so incredible that I have a hard time limiting myself to 3 or 4.

The Museum festival is where I am planning to spend most of that Sunday, and I see it's a national holiday, Whitsunday, followed by Whitmonday when I leave for Munich.

Posted by
2296 posts

Thank you for this! We'll be in Budapest in little over a month and I've been following your posts.

Posted by
28055 posts

Patty, you might like to check the timing of the WAMP design festivals close to your departure date. They don't announce them very far in advance, and the locations vary. I stopped by one yesterday at Erzsebet ter, right next to Deak Ferenc ter. It had nice-quality goods that generally loked hand-made. A good spot for picking up a local product as a souvenir. Heavy focus on things to be worn or carried (especially by women), as is usually the case at craft shows, but the variety was decent. It's wasn't super high-end (didn't compare to the annual Smithsonian craft show, for example), but I found it enjoyable. Hours for yesterday's show were 11-7, and it was outdoors; I don't know whether that's always the case.

NEW TOPIC: Don't go out to Heroes' Square (where the Mucsarnok is located) just to see the Monument of the 1956 Revolution. The best I could tell, it is behind a very large construction barrier that looks like it's going to be there for a long time. In Memoriam 1956, located beneath Kossuth Lajos ter near the Parliament is worthwhile, though. It has good explanatory material.