The exhibition, entitled Today, Berlin is our Paris - the experience of Hungarian writers in Berlin 1900-1933, is part of the Petőfi Museum of Literature's Writers with Baggage series, which has explored the experience of Hungarian writers in several other European cities as well. The exhibition will be opened by the critic Béla Bacsó.
Berlin was the second most important base for expatriate Hungarian artists after Paris at the start of the 20th century. Today, Berlin is our Paris shows the effect the city had on the number of Hungarian artists, writers and poets who lived in the city for a short or a long time. The exhibition explores how the metropolis inspired them and what connections they established there. It revisits venues which embodied the city's dynamic at the time - the Sturm Galerie, the Café des Westens and the Nürnberger Café - and where Hungarian artists played an important role, including the publisher Lajos Bíró, the translators Jenő Mohácsi, Stefan Klein and Henrik Horváth, and the writer and film director Béla Balázs. Balázs was among good company in Berlin at the time: of the 300 film professionals working in the city, about half were Hungarian. Berlin was home to Hungarian photographers György Kepes, Judit Kárász, Éva Besnyő and László Moholy-Nagy, and Hungarian artists László Péri, Lajos Kassák, János Mattis-Teutsch, Hugó Scheiber, Lajos Tihanyi and Aurél Bernáth. Hungarian playwrights and actors also made their mark on the city, among them Ferenc Molnár, Menyhért Lengyel, Lajos Bíró and Oszkár Beregi, as did, of course, Hungarian writers, including Lajos Hatvany, Sándor Márai, Lajos Bíró, Tibor Déry, Jenő Rejtő and Dezső Keresztury.
The exhibition shows never before displayed artifacts and mementos from the collection of the Petőfi Museum of Literature as well as many other museums.
The exhibition is open until September 1, 2007, after which it will travel to the new Collegium Hungaricum in Berlin.
