Night of Museums 2026

★ CURRENT EXHIBITIONS ★

1st Floor | THERE WILL BE NO END AFTER ALL. Neo-Avant-Garde and Contemporary Artists from the Art Fond Collection, Bratislava

2nd Floor | Black Mirror. The Long Shadow of the Future

3rd Floor | Big Bang. Expanding Horizons of the Collection

★ PROGRAMME ★

16:00–18:00 | Flavours and Scents – Associations in Art

A playful and engaging exploration of the Big Bang exhibition for both children and adults. In this special sensory programme, flavours and scents open up new perspectives on the artworks, inviting personal connections and unexpected associations. Choose a scent or flavour, then find the artwork you feel relates to it most closely. These encounters are shaped by memories, moods and personal experiences—tell us why you made your choice.

Led by artist and art mediator Orsi Barabássy.

Location: 3rd Floor Exhibition Space

17:00–17:30 | Surprise Guest: Lenin Appears in the Black Mirror Exhibition

In the Blue Noses video artwork, Lenin is spinning in his grave, tired of eternity and the endless gazes directed at him. Then, quite unexpectedly, he shows up at the ticket desk, buys a wristband, and leisurely makes his way through the exhibition to take a look at himself. Want a selfie with him?

Location: 2nd Floor Exhibition Space

18:00–19:00 | Do You Have an Artistic Vein? – Insomnia from the Inside / Meet the BÚRA Team

What does silence sound like when you cannot fall asleep? The BÚRA team, third-place winner of the 2025/2026 Do You Have an Artistic Vein? international art competition, presents a sensitive and immersive installation during Museum Night. Created in response to this year's theme, Sound & Silence, the work evokes the world of insomnia: a state in which every tiny sound becomes amplified and silence gradually fills with inner noise.

Visitors will also have the opportunity to meet the creators and hear about inspiration, anxiety, nighttime thoughts, and the process of transforming these experiences into contemporary art.

An hour where even silence has a voice.

Team members: Huba Égő, Tibor Hortobágyi, Sára Emília Németh-Tisza
Mentor: Gáspár Szőke

Location: 3rd Floor Exhibition Space

18:00–19:00 | Future, Technology and Art – What Comes After Black Mirror?
A Conversation between Futurist Árpád Rab and Curator József Készman

Artificial intelligence, digital worlds, surveillance, virtual reality—are we already living in the future, or is it only just beginning?

Within the exhibition Black Mirror. The Long Shadow of the Future, futurist Árpád Rab and curator József Készman discuss the relationship between technology, humanity and contemporary art. Topics include artificial intelligence, digital culture, possible future scenarios, and the ways contemporary artists respond to these developments.

Does technology liberate us, or does it create new forms of dependency? How are human relationships, memory and creativity changing?

Árpád Rab is a digital culture expert and futurist, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Information Society of the University of Public Service, lead researcher of the UNESCO Chair Digital Platforms for Learning Societies, and a member of the Institute for the Future creative community. For more than twenty years he has studied the relationship between digital technologies and society, with a particular focus on artificial intelligence, digital transformation and intelligent social adaptation.

Audience participation is encouraged—ask questions, debate and think together.

An evening where science fiction and reality no longer seem so far apart.

Location: 2nd Floor Exhibition Space

18:00–22:00 | Create, Play, Connect!

Portable and Paintable Houses and Trees

The small plaster reliefs from Szilvia Takács's Portable and Paintable Houses and Trees series are both artworks and playful interactive objects. Visitors can paint the individually modelled and reproduced casts according to their own taste and take them home as souvenirs.

Special editions created for Museum Night depict the Müpa building as seen from the entrance of the Ludwig Museum, as well as a section of the Danube.

Led by sculptor and art educator Szilvia Takács.

Are You Sure You Know?

A playful art quiz featuring exciting questions and valuable book prizes.

Message Wall for the Renewal of Art Education

Share your thoughts, ideas and personal experiences, and join the conversation about the future of art education. Informal discussions and exchanges of ideas are welcome throughout the evening.

Location: Library – Ludwig Studio

19:00–20:00 | Curator's Tour of Big Bang. Expanding Horizons of the Collection
with József Készman

Since the museum's foundation in 1989, its collection has grown by more than one thousand works. Collection exhibitions are regularly organised around specific themes or curatorial perspectives. The approximately seventy-year span represented by the artworks means that works from different periods and contexts form the basis of the selection.

While preserving and reconstructing their original meanings and contexts, historical distance also allows for the discovery of new relationships and the presentation of alternative interpretations.

Location: 3rd Floor Exhibition Space

20:00–22:00 | Mirror, Mirror… Mini Guided Tours with the Curators – Dystopia Passport
30-minute mini tours in Black Mirror. The Long Shadow of the Future

Explore possible futures through five different stations. Visitors can participate in short guided tours focusing on thematic sections of the exhibition while collecting stamps in their personal “Dystopia Passport”.

Each station presents a different vision of the future: social scenarios, personal fears, technological transformations, or memories of urban life. Through these encounters, visitors engage not only with the artworks but also with their own questions and ideas.

After collecting all stamps, participants may choose a badge representing one of two possible futures.

Location: 2nd Floor Exhibition Space

20:30–21:30 | Guided Tour by Art Historian Máté Csanda
in THERE WILL BE NO END AFTER ALL. Neo-Avant-Garde and Contemporary Artists from the Art Fond Collection, Bratislava

After attending secondary school in Bratislava, Máté Csanda began his studies in Germany, graduating from the Department of Visual Communication at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kassel. He subsequently studied Art History at the University of Vienna, where he earned his Master's degree in 2020 and later became a research associate and lecturer. Since 2024, he has been a visiting lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava.

Alongside his writings and critical texts, he has curated and participated in several exhibition projects, primarily in Slovak institutions. He is currently completing his doctoral dissertation, focusing on contemporary Central and Eastern European art projects that critically engage with nationalist identity narratives and authoritarian memory politics.

Location: 1st Floor Exhibition Space

22:00–23:00 | Bossa Nova in the Shadow of the Future

During Museum Night, Rozina Pátkai and István Tóth invite audiences on a special musical journey. Their intimate voice-and-guitar concert features authentic bossa nova melodies, Latin jazz classics and sensitive reinterpretations performed in Portuguese and Spanish.

Through delicate improvisations, a lyrical atmosphere and many years of musical collaboration, the duo evokes both the melancholic spirit of Brazil and the intimacy of chamber music.

Location: 2nd Floor Exhibition Space