On the evening of October 30, the MODEM Centre for Modern and Contemporary Arts opened its latest exhibition, titled Bodies and Memories – Figurative Works from the Antal–Lusztig Collection, with a large-scale opening event.
Speeches were delivered by László Papp, Mayor of Debrecen, and Kata Vizi, Managing Director of MODEM, followed by Péter Antal, art collector and founder of the Antal–Lusztig Collection, who shared his reflections with the audience.
After the official opening, visitors were invited to join a guided tour led by Krisztián Gábor Török, the exhibition’s curator, and Péter Antal. The exhibition Bodies and Memories presents the diversity and depth of post-war Hungarian figurative art through a selection from the Antal–Lusztig Collection.
Rather than offering a traditional historical overview, the exhibition serves as a contemporary reinterpretation that places a human-centered perspective at its core. Figurativism is presented as the intertwining of body and memory, figure and myth, past and present.
One of the exhibition’s focal points is the personal and artistic relationship between Péter Antal and artist Lili Ország, which significantly influenced the direction of the collection. Antal purchased his first artwork from Lili Ország in the late 1960s, choosing not only a painting but also a worldview — one that treats the image as a remembering body bound by personal connection.
The exhibition is structured around four interrelated concepts: figure, role, memory, and myth. Its aim is to show that figurative art is not a closed chapter but a living and continuously renewing form of vision.
The first part of the exhibition is on view in Debrecen at MODEM, while the second part will open on November 13 at the Collegium Hungaricum in Berlin.
Among the featured artists are Margit Anna, Endre Bálint, Imre Bukta, Tibor Csernus, El Kazovszkij, Béla Kondor, Lili Ország, Gyula Pauer, Erzsébet Schaár, József Szurcsik, and András Wahorn, among others.
