Misunderstanding: a museum on the Danube dam
Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum
MúzeumCafé 11.
In 2000 the Danubiana Museum opened in Dunacsúny, on an artificial dam constituting part of the Bős-Nagymaros dam project. It is in the middle of a reservoir in a peculiar world formed as part of the radically changed landscape required for damming. Thus the geographical context of the museum is none other than the scene of traumatic politics. The infinite lake of the dammed river is as much an artificial ‘landscape’ as the dam itself – an engineering-political construction at the centre of ecological and national political disputes. Clearly the establishment of the museum was closely connected to the trauma which the existence and identity of Danubiana are to undo and make forgotten. In this peculiar tale, which is turning into a redemption story, certain expectations and hopes in relation to the museum play nearly as important a role as the creation of the artificial lake and the time that has passed since the original project was abandoned. If you approach it from Hungary you go from the former border crossing at Rajka towards Dunacsúny, which can only be reached by bicycle. (From Slovakia the situation is a bit better – a bus runs every 20 minutes from Bratislava.) The aim is to utilize the former military area and open the space created by dam architecture for the public. Dunacsúny today is a popular recreation area for Bratislava residents. In good weather there are hundreds of cyclists, not to mention those roller skating, jogging or pursuing Nordic Walking – the neighbourhood is a paradise for middle class sport fanatics for whom even an artificial rafting course has been created utilizing the varying heights of the water level. The spectacle of thousands doing sports on the bare dams like a Dutch landscape parody is that of some supermodern space/non-space – described so precisely by French anthropologist Mar Auge: non lieu provides a ‘home’ for the Danubiana Museum. Its use and mission are greatly defined by the fact that the majority of visitors can reach it only by car and mainly those on the way to do sports who cast a glance towards the museum at the end of the dam and the open-air statue park surrounding it. Designed by Peter Zalman in the tradition of ‘talking architecture’, the building is made to ‘speak’ and evokes the shape of a ship or more precisely an ancient slave galley. As regards the quality of the collection, the absence of serious art works raises more embarrassing questions than those about the architecture. The Meulensteen collection is something forgettable, while some of the statues surrounding the building also induce an unpleasant impression. The late species of modern art on the finely mowed lawn of the dam and among the stretches of water present a troubling rather than an uplifting feeling, including Peter Pollag’s works, who is diligently fighting for the museum. The temporary exhibition Tolerance is a clear example of this hopeless situation. In hard times a hundred Slovak and a hundred Hungarian artists express how important the title of the exhibition, ‘tolerance’, and the idea of mutual respect is for them. So far, so good – but it does not produce good pictures. There are some excellent ones among both the Slovak and Hungarian works, but others are like amateur kitsch. The Danubiana Museum is an important period document. It records the excessive hopes and mistaken expectations with respect to the museum. It serves as an important source and local story for all those who will study the institution from a cultural aspect in the future.