The art pieces of Sámuel Havadtőy (Sam Havadtoy) did not get a warm welcome in Budapest to say the least. His exhibition opened just a couple of days ago in the Hungarian National Museum, but there is already reason for disappointment for Yoko Ono’s Hungarian ex.
The artist
The 70-year-old artist, Sámuel Havadtőy is a prolific figure of the 21st century. Although, many people consider Havadtőy American, he considers himself Hungarian. He has Hungarian and British citizenship, but he lived in the USA and in Spain as well. The Hungarian artist has told Blikk that his cultural diversity is something that he wants to represent through his art.
He used to be Yoko Ono’s partner for decades. The artist helped Yoko raise her and John Lennon’s child, Sean. Havadtőy and Yoko have not spoken ever since their break up, although Sean is still keeping in touch with the Hungarian artist. Havadtőy worked with many famous artists in his life, such as Andy Warhol and Keith Haring. He also had great friendship with these two men.
His exhibition
His exhibition opened on the 22nd of June in the Hungarian National Museum. He recreated eleven famous modern paintings in his own style; with his lace technique. What connects the eleven paintings is that their creators were all some kind of a cultural immigrant. Havadtőy sees himself as a cultural immigrant too, therefore the name of his exhibition is Cultural Migration. The collection can be visited until the 27th of August. He also has a permanent exhibition in the Buda Castle.
Atrocity against his art
Unfortunately, his great art suffered many atrocities in Budapest. In the unique exhibition, each painting can be seen in two versions: in front of the second work of art, the artist placed a sliding cover that visitors can pull away and back. To create this, the artist placed a special tool, a rake, also decorated with his trademark lace motif. Out of the six rakes, three have already disappeared into thin air, just days after opening the exhibition. These events have upset the artist deeply. He is upset that he has spent over two years trying to show something to people, and they are just not open for that. It would be the bare minimum to deal with these art pieces with respect. It is very over the top that three of the rakes are now of private ownership. The solution: visitors cannot touch the rakes anymore, only the tour guides can.
Havadtőy told Blikk that he had similar problems with his exhibition in Buda Castle. After the incident there, he had to call for the immediate help of art renovators to fix the issue and keep the exhibition open. Despite of this, the artist thinks that this could happen anywhere in the world, it is not a Hungarian specific problem. There are people everywhere in the world who are incapable of respecting and understanding art.
