MaNDAHungarian National Digital Archive

In the spring of 1985, a red Zhiguli stopped in the middle of a street in Kapolcs, in front of Elli Márvány’s gate, got out of the car and asked: “Is there a house for sale in the village?” He was lucky, because a very nice little peasant house became vacant those days, so they went to see it and bought it immediately. This was how Kapolcs met István Márta and it was followed by the formation of Kapolcs Club and the Valley of Arts. With this exhibition we are going to introduce the beginnings of the Kapolcs Festival and the collection of Kapolcs Club.

There is no settlement without a Kossuth statue, street or square in Hungary. According to Erzsébet Reznák, director of the Kossuth Museum of Cegléd, his bronze or stone statue is the most frequent sculpture type that stands on public places. Where does his first public statue stand, and why is the city of Cegléd so special? This week’s assortment unveils the answers.

Magicians and illusionists exploit the deficiencies of human thinking and perception with their tricks, creating the illusion of supernatural skills. Although wizardry cannot be learnt by practising magic tricks, certain dangerous spectacles, for example escaping, allow you to develop such amazing attributions like bravery or the ability of overcoming panic in extremely stressful situations.

Martfű became famous as the peak of Hungarian shoes, though the Czech born Jan Antonin Baťa was the one who first saw fantasy in the little village by the Tisza. He bought the site of the shoe factory in 1939 and started producing three years later under the name Cikta Inc. After nationalisations, it received the well-sounding name Tisza Shoe Factory National Company and the rest is history. The irony of fate is that besides the shoe factory, Martfű went down in history with the atrocities of a serial killer. This week we are travelling to Martfű.