They can all have their s(pr)ay
Graffiti in a museum
MúzeumCafé 10.
Graffiti … a sign on the wall. Some think it is art, some regard it as spoiling walls and surfaces. It’s a fact that it can be created artistically and it can also be daubed in a bungling manner. The Angyalföld Local History Collection has compiled graffiti from Budapest’s 13th district for its exhibition open until 10 May. Although graffiti is illegal in public places, inside the museum visitors themselves can use a can of spray to express their opinion. Curator Balázs Maczó decided to take photographs of graffiti last autumn in order to preserve them for the future. He feels that graffiti is a symbolic sign reflecting some kind of inability to conduct a dialogue with society. 600,000 forints has been allocated for the project from the ‘Museums and Visitors Foundation’, and the museum is adding a similar value. The exhibition is not meant to be permanent, but it might go on tour and thus the compilation could be kept together for a year. Finance is still required to publish a catalogue. “The best way to get people go to museums is if we make an approach from the present. A museum, especially a local history one, has to not only collect but also show people that what is the present today will be the past by tomorrow, and thus also a document of a period,” says Balázs Maczó, who doesn’t deny that the museum already missed an opportunity at the time of the 1989-90 political changes when they were unable to gather valuable objects from the district’s factories. The graffiti exhibition designers have constructed a dark installation full of twists and turns, echoing subways and underground passages. ‘Legal walls’ – places where graffiti is allowed – would probably help to promote the future acceptance of this genre. Such a wall greets visitors as they are about to leave the museum.