A not insignificant portion of the contemporary works in the Ludwig Museum’s collection concern themselves with some imagined future or interpret the present as a materialization of some past dystopia – often calling attention to real problems in the act, whether they be social, environmental, political, economic, scientific or technological.

Dark or black mirrors were originally means of divination and represented access to secret knowledge and the ability to see clearly. Today, by black mirror we mean the screens of digital devices, as well as their ‘freezing’ or dysfunction; in a metaphorical sense, the dark screen, when turned off, shows a distorted self-image of the present – it is a metaphor of technological self-reflection.

This exhibition, which can be considered as the first stage in a longer and more comprehensive research, draws primarily on the collection of the Ludwig Museum, with the addition of a few invited artists, and seeks to chart dystopian artistic premises and thought experiments in the Hungarian creative scene of the past few decades.

The exhibition is on view between 8 April and 18 October 2026.