In addition to its efforts to understand and improve the world, in 2026 the Ludwig Museum will focus on the idea of an accessible open institution, symbolically marking or dissolving the boundaries between the museum and its surroundings.
As an open institutional space, the museum connects with the city in both its exhibitions and its mode of operation, cooperates with various social groups and other venues, opens up space for collective thinking, organises knowledge sharing in a networked manner, engages in dialogue, amplifies voices, processes, and aspirations. In the spirit of the open museum, in 2026 the Ludwig Museum will place the relationship between its collection and the environment on a new footing, opening up the collection and its spaces to those interested and making them more accessible. The museum’s approach to the world and itself this year is shaped by two anniversaries: the Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art opened 30 years ago in 1996, and this year marks the 85th birthday of the institution’s founder, Katalin Néray, whom the institution will commemorate with a conference.
The program opens in spring with the exhibition Black Mirror: The Long Shadow of the Future, which examines the distorted self-image of the present based on works with a dystopian focus from the Ludwig Museum’s collection. The works on display reflect on ideologies, social control, technological development, and our collective fears through visions of the future that emerge from past experiences and present processes. The exhibition can be considered the first stage of a longer and more comprehensive research project.
It will be followed in mid-April by the exhibition In the End There Will Be No End, presenting the neo-avant-garde material of the Art Fond Collection in Bratislava, which draws attention to the alternative, often informal and countercultural strategies of Eastern European art. The works on display, which lie outside the official narratives, question the historically determined present, the political nature of time, and various forms of resistance. The exhibition interprets the neo-avant-garde not as a closed phenomenon in art history, but as a state of mind that continues to inform conceptual, intermedia, feminist, ecological, and activist positions in contemporary art.
A selection entitled The Walking Man – The Art of Walking will be on display from October. Walking is one of the most fundamental forms of human movement, which goes beyond its practical, everyday function and can also be interpreted as a cultural-historical phenomenon, a means of cognition, an act of art, and a philosophical method. The exhibition examines walking as an art form, a narrative tool, and a critical practice through works, projects, and actions that use the everyday activity of walking as a means of discovery, exploration, resistance, and political action.
The Ludwig Museum is presenting Endre Koronczi’s exhibition Pneuma Cosmic at this year’s Venice Biennale of Visual Arts. The project, which was selected through an open competition in accordance with Hungarian practice and based on the decision of a professional jury, draws parallels between the processes of air movement and thought, drawing attention to the complex relationship between perception and environmental experience. Following the Biennale, an expanded version of the exhibition will be on display at the Ludwig Museum in December.
Through the museum’s related programs, visitors can gain a deeper insight into the themes of the exhibitions and actively experience art through lectures by experts, curators, and researchers, as well as through workshops and interactive sessions. Roundtable discussions and symposiums will provide opportunities to engage in dialogue on social and technological issues.
The Ludwig Museum not only offers museum experiences, but also supports knowledge transfer and the development of creative competencies: in other words, it mediates, inspires, and develops itself at the same time.
