Hungarian pottery, part of an exhibition on view now at New York’s Forbes Galleries
January 28, 2009. The country that gave us the ballpoint pen and the Rubik’s Cube is looking for a little cultural recognition in the U.S. this year. Already underway, the Extremely Hungary yearlong festival will showcase contemporary Hungarian artists in both New York City and Washington, D.C., complete with cooking classes at the French Culinary Institute (goulash anyone?) and a mustache contest held in hipster enclave Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Check out the Zsolnay ceramic factory exhibition currently on view at New York’s Forbes Galleries, with rare modernist vases and pitchers decorated in the country’s traditional blossom and leaf imagery. Also on display there is work from the first modernist painters in Hungary, the Seekers, who used their art to voice political action during the early 1900s. The gallery will feature work by Cubist painter Róbert Berény and landscape artist József Nemes-Lampérth until March 28. When the weather warms up, don’t miss the Hungarian Design Fair during ICFF, from May 16 through 19 at the Hungarian Cultural Center. www.extremelyhungary.com