The show, called Pathos in Red, contains 45 posters. Among them are ones made in the 1920s that are harshly critical of the regime of Miklós Horthy in Hungary at the time.
?Bíró was a convinced social democrat. He had clear cut political opinions that he expressed with his own language and his own aesthetic, without compromise,? said MAK director Peter Noever.
Influenced by the Arts and Crafts Movement as well as the Guild of Handicraft, which Biró learned about on study trips through Europe, the poster designer, draughtsman, sculptor and painter rose to become the government commissar for political posters in Budapest after the Great War, the exhibition organisers say.
It was his pictures for the Social Democratic Workers? Party and advertising posters as well as his sentimentally expressive works for UFA that led to him being one of the most sought-after graphic artists of the 1920s in Austria, where he lived from 1919 to 1928.
?When we set the date for the opening of the exhibition, we did not know how close it would be to elections in Vienna, but it is interesting to compare the campaigns,? said MAK library head Kathrin Pokorny-Nagel.
?Today, there is no artistic effort made in the creation of political posters. Their aim is transience, while Bíró?s work remains with us till today,? she said. ?Perhaps this is because the politicians don?t want anybody to remember what they wrote and what they promised after the elections,? she added.
The exhibition runs until September 1, 2011.
