Museums sometimes have trouble keeping up with the latest tendencies in art - even those that call themselves contemporary - as they typically lag behind fast-moving commercial galleries, highly-motivated collectors and independent curators in the rush to stay ahead of the curve. Major art museums do though have the advantage of gravitas, as everything they bring within the hallowed space of the gallery takes on the aura of the art historical canon, so that even the most casual and dematerialised artistic gestures can be transformed into precious art objects.

Budapest’s Ludwig Museum takes the task of nurturing and reframing the nation’s most significant collection of contemporary art very seriously, with regular thematic refreshment of the permanent display and a strategic attitude towards the sensitive business of contemporary collecting. The exhibition Kind of Change is an instructive showcase of works acquired in the last two years, that can be taken both a demonstration of the artistic tastes of the institution and its savvy director Barnabás Bencsik, as well as a guide to artists currently on the path to being canonised by the Museum.

One focus that comes across clearly from the show is the desire to confront and engage with the recent past of Central Europe, with a number of works dealing with art and everyday existence under socialism. The museum has strengthened its holdings of works by members of the Hungarian neo-avant-garde, with the addition of Gyula Pauer’s highly-involved system of the Pseudo and photographic documentation of Endre Tót’s equally conceptual demonstrations on the streets of Geneva. Painting has not been neglected, with acquisition of works by the pivotal Dóra Mauer and Ilona Keserü’s explosions of colour that suggestively confront the greyness of socialism.

The Ludwig Museum has shown itself to be ahead of the game in the discovery of the oeuvre of a female conceptual artist, who has until recently been virtually invisible to art history. Judit Kele’s witty, feminist-inspired actions from the 1970s included literally putting herself up for auction as a work of art in Paris. Another collecting coup is the revival of Tamás St.Auby’s cult film, Centaur, which was originally made in 1975, banned for its anti-regime insinuations about the poetic life of the workers, lost and all but forgotten for more than three decades, before being restored and shown to international acclaim at the Istanbul Biennial in 2009.

A clear strength of the collecting policy at the Ludwig is its regional orientation, shown by the purchase of a number of important works by artists from elsewhere in Central Europe. Romanian artist Ciprian Mureşan’s sign made out of pieces of vinyl propaganda discs cunningly declares ‘Communism never happened’,  while artist duo KwieKulik’s intimate photographs capture the oppositional spirit of artistic life in the Poland of the 70s. The well-known Czech artist Kateřina Šedá has an intriguing community art project involving the inhabitants of a housing estate in Törökbálint, who through involvement in social games highlight the new lifestyle of the dormitory suburb.

The younger artists who have joined the privileged ranks of ‘the included’ are as likely to be drawn to the vagaries of life on the capitalist periphery as to dwell on the traumas of the socialist past. Provocative Slovakia-born artist Ilona Németh calls attention to the encroachments on the private sphere brought by globalisation, while British artist Matthias Megyeri deals with surveillance in risk society through his patent security devices. The Ludwig also picked up a resonant work by the artist duo Gergely László and Péter Rákosi, whose photographic investigations of teenage battle enthusiasts poignantly expresses the tension between the longings of nostalgia and the irreversible transformations wrought by time.

KwieKulik: Activities with Dobromierz, 1972-74 / 2008