This autumn has brought a string of unexpected cancellations to the programme of one of Budapest’s most prominent art spaces - the Műcsarnok or Kunsthalle - that can only partly be explained by the deteriorating financial situation. The last minute changes to the exhibition line up also reflect the priorities of the institution’s new management, whose strategy, as announced earlier this year, is to attract new audiences by showing the work of Twentieth Century masters such as Francis Bacon and Joseph Beuys, holding major solo shows of Hungarian artists, and organising group shows dealing with relevant social questions from the perils of consumerism to the ‘trauma of Trianon’. Whatever the ultimate reason for the cancellations, it cannot be good for the vast halls of the Műcsarnok to stand empty, as they did over the whole summer.

First to go was the Budapest Art Fair, a popular fixture in the calendar of Hungarian contemporary art that has traditionally been held in the Műcsarnok. Although last year the fair managed to attract a third more visitors and attempted to bolster its international appeal by hosting a special section for East European galleries, it turned out not to be enough to ensure the viability of the event through the art market downturn. Unfortunately the heroic efforts of the galleries involved in building up the fair over the years - which was to have been marked this year by rebranding the fair as the ‘Heroes Square Art Fair’ and by laying on an exclusive Art Boat to entice collectors from Vienna – have evaporated following the withdrawal of the event’s main sponsor. Stepping into the breach, Art Market Budapest will be held for the second time this year at the Millénáris Convention Centre at the end of October (see listings for details).

The second surprise cancellation was that of Hungary’s leading prize for contemporary art, the AVIVA Award, which since 2009 had managed to firmly establish the ‘local version of the British Turner Prize’ in the consciousness of the Hungarian art world, with a genuine buzz surrounding the show of competing shortlisted artists. This autumn’s prize, which had earlier been announced in the annual programme of the Műcsarnok, was unexpectedly cancelled at the end of August.  The new director of the Műcsarnok, Gábor Gulyás – who was directly appointed by the Ministry at the beginning of the year after none of the five shortlisted candidates for the post were deemed to have offered a ‘convincing concept’ - told the Hungarian daily Népszabadság that the global insurance company had pulled out of the role of main sponsor of the prize because of financial difficulties and that any future incarnation of the prize would certainly ‘not be named after a company.’

The third and most recent Műcsarnok cancellation to rock the art world is that of the solo show of French artist Xavier Veilhan, which was originally scheduled for summer 2011. A strongly worded letter of protest from the artist and Paris-based Romanian curator Ami Barak has circulated on email lists in both Hungarian and English versions, in which they express their disappointment that after a year and a half of preparation for the show, the exhibition could be so abruptly cancelled. Complaining of having encountered a ‘wall of silence and evasion’, their letter warns of a ‘surreal situation’, an acute ‘non-professionalism’, and an attitude of ‘total distain’ towards artists and critics. Money was certainly a factor, with reportedly only a fraction of the 32 million forints needed to stage the show secured, even without the curatorial fee, which was ten times the Műcsarnok’s going rate. Gábor Gulyás, responded to their accusatory letter the same day with a press release refusing to comment on their ‘absurd and alarming statements’, while threatening unspecified legal action.

Maja and Reuben Fowkes