The first exhibition was organised in the Bercsényi Street student halls of the architecture faculty of what was then called the Technical University of the Building Industry and Transport (from 1967 renamed the Technological University of Budapest) in October 1963. The club that belonged to the student halls – which a month later rose to the rank of a college dormitory – was opened with the aim of providing its students with the opportunity to put on exhibitions but at the same time also accommodated young artists who were unable to appear at representative, official exhibition venues. There is scant information on the background and organisation of the shows on Bercsényi Steet during the sixties. Among the students the names of Ferenc Kovács, Zoltán Bachman and László Vidolovits crop up as exhibition organisers, and it was they who published art critiques and accounts in the columns of the dormitory’s own publication titled Bercsényi 28-30. The names of Máté Major, Frigyes Pogány and Lajos Németh can be frequently read among those who opened exhibitions at the time.

The events that stand out in the sixties include the exhibition titled Traditions, organised by Tihamér Gyarmathy in 1968, which showcased the art of the Russian Avant-garde (Malevich, Kandinski, Tatlin), the Bauhaus (Moholy-Nagy), the European School (Jakovits, Gyarmathy, Lossonczy) and those of Hungarian artists living abroad (Vasarely, Kemény), albeit mainly through reproductions of their works.

The university club was granted relative freedom since it fell outside the scope of authority pertaining to official art policy. Surprisingly enough, the organisers managed to circumvent the censorship of the Institute for Fine and Applied Arts and sorted the censoring process out “in house” through the inclusion of the Technical University’s Department of Drawing. Thus, the opportunity arose for the Bercsényi Club to launch a forum for artists carrying on the traditions of the Hungarian Avant-garde as well as historians of architecture and art who stood up for these traditions in the face of socialist realism.

The club’s exhibition programme between 1972 and 1975 was organised by Tamás Nagy and Attila Kovács. According to contemporaneous recollections, the venue attracted visitors thanks to the Syrius music band, which regularly performed here. The exhibitions came into being in an ad hoc fashion: artists were given the opportunity to display their work based on the organisers’ network of friends and acquaintances. Exhibitions were organised at the time from the fibre glass sculptures of László Paizs (1972), from Gábor Attalai’s conceptual works (1972) and János Vető’s photographs (1974).

In 1972 Tamás Szentjóby presented his happening titled "The Greatest Number of Disobedience", linked to a Syrius concert. Szentjóby and László Beke organised the Avant-garde Festival, also in 1972, for which they had the fliers printed but in the end the event was banned by the police. Over forty fine art artists, writers and art historians would have taken part in the festival, including Gábor Attalai, Imre Bak, Gábor Bódy, Éva Körner, Miklós Erdély, Dóra Maurer and Endre Tót. In that same year they re-organised the event within the framework of the Balatonboglár chapel exhibitons.

Unlike in previous years, in 1976-77 the organiser of events in the Bercsényi Club was an outsider, Tamás Olescher (assisted in his work by Péter Szaló and Péter Vesmás, both delegated by the dormitory), who had participated in organising the club’s musical performances before. He also organised the events at the Jókai Arts Centre in Budaörs during the same period.The image of the two venues was very similarat the time, in respect to both the exhibiting artists and the musical performances. According to Olescher’s accounts, he always strove for variety and diversity in his exhibition concepts.

There was usually a jazz concert organised for each exhibition opening. The jurying of the exhibitions could thus be avoided as the shows were advertised as a few days of events linked to the concerts. At this time placards played an important role since they not only provided information on the times of the exhibitions and concerts but also conveyed some information on the artists, plus an illustration of the given artists’ works would appear on each of them. In order to circumvent the banning of the events, annual or bi-annual placards were made of the events, since Oleschler hoped that the programmes already printed would not be subsequently banned. This is not the way it happened, however, as the following example proves: in 1977 two different placards were published on the events planned for the spring season. On the first Miklós Erdély’s exhibition was announced for 19 April, which in the end was not held; on the second placard an architectural presentation was advertised for the exact same time.

The period between 1978 and 1980 was the “golden age” of the Bercsényi Club. The organisational tasks were taken over from Tamás Olescher by János Rauschenberger and Csaba Stork. Fulfilling their ambitious plans, Bercsényi became a venue for artists they judged to be the best but – to use their expression – not necessarily the most “fashionable”. In Rauschenberger’s words: “almost everything that was Avant-garde art” at the time took place in Bercsényi.

The club was the venue for experimental trends seeking a new path including performance art (Tibor Hajas, Gyula Pauer), environment art (Miklós Erdély, András Halász and Zsigmond Károlyi , the Indigo Group), conceptual use of photography (János Vető, Zsigmond Károlyi) with the traditional genres being pushed into the background. The organisers introduced some innovations into the programme structure such as the thematic exhibition series: an example for this was the five-part series of exhibitions and lectures organised in 1978 in honour of Béla Kondor, who had died some years earlier; the host of the events was the artist’s monographer, Lajos Németh. In the series titled Five Art Historians – Five Exhibitions the invited art historians were able to realise their concepts within the framework of an exhibition each. A series was organised both in 1978 and 1979 with the title Contemporary Art, with the participation of Ákos Birkás, András Halász, László Najmányi , Zsigmond Károlyi , András Baranyay and Tibor Hajas and others.

At the end of the seventies, exhibitions, conferences and special editions of periodicals sought to bring analyses evaluating the artistic aspirations of the decade. The Bercsényi Club was among the first to organise thematic exhibitions in an attempt to provide a cross section of the period’s most important fine arts and architectural trends. In spring 1980 – preceding the six-part exhibition series at the Óbuda Gallery – two shows featured the Hungarian fine arts scene of the seventies. The exhibition providing an overview of the architecture of the seventies not only displayed the documentation of already realised plans but also the work of young architects and designs which had no chance of being implemented within the confines of the planned economy, panel architecture and standard designs of the time. Prominent among the series of architectural exhibitions was the show Pseudo, Quasi and Meta Architecture, organised in 1978, displaying projects submitted to the competition with the same title announced with the aim of “revitalising architectural thinking” and exploring the borderlines of architecture.

Even though the jurying process of the exhibitions became stricter, the planned events were implemented almost without exception. Nowadays it is difficult to ascertain how those arts events that regularly went beyond the boundaries set by cultural policy were nevertheless accorded a place in the club. We will never know what compromises or verbal agreements were actually made behind the scenes between the directors of the dormitory and perhaps the Ministry of the Interior or party organs. The operations of the club could have been brought to a halt with the stroke of a pen, but that did not happen. A major role in maintaining continuity was probably played by people, equally accepted in professional and cultural policy circles, who frequently opened the exhibitions, regularly held lectures in the dormitory and published in the Bercsényi periodical. People fitting this description in the eighties were Máté Major, Lajos Németh (his name can be read in the documents relating to the Bercsényi Club right until the eighties), László Beke and Zoltán Szentkirályi (he taught at the Technical University’s Faculty of Architectural History and was in charge of the exhibition circle on behalf of the university).

The period between 1978 and 1980 was the “golden age” of the Bercsényi Club. The organisational tasks were taken over from Tamás Olescher by János Rauschenberger and Csaba Stork. Fulfilling their ambitious plans, Bercsényi became a venue for artists they judged to be the best but – to use their expression – not necessarily the most “fashionable”. In Rauschenberger’s words: “almost everything that was Avant-garde art” at the time took place in Bercsényi.

The club was the venue for experimental trends seeking a new path including performance art (Tibor Hajas, Gyula Pauer), environment art (Miklós Erdély, András Halász and Zsigmond Károlyi , the Indigo Group), conceptual use of photography (János Vető, Zsigmond Károlyi) with the traditional genres being pushed into the background. The organisers introduced some innovations into the programme structure such as the thematic exhibition series: an example for this was the five-part series of exhibitions and lectures organised in 1978 in honour of Béla Kondor, who had died some years earlier; the host of the events was the artist’s monographer, Lajos Németh. In the series titled Five Art Historians – Five Exhibitions the invited art historians were able to realise their concepts within the framework of an exhibition each. A series was organised both in 1978 and 1979 with the title Contemporary Art, with the participation of Ákos Birkás, András Halász, László Najmányi , Zsigmond Károlyi , András Baranyay and Tibor Hajas and others.

At the end of the seventies, exhibitions, conferences and special editions of periodicals sought to bring analyses evaluating the artistic aspirations of the decade. The Bercsényi Club was among the first to organise thematic exhibitions in an attempt to provide a cross section of the period’s most important fine arts and architectural trends. In spring 1980 – preceding the six-part exhibition series at the Óbuda Gallery – two shows featured the Hungarian fine arts scene of the seventies. The exhibition providing an overview of the architecture of the seventies not only displayed the documentation of already realised plans but also the work of young architects and designs which had no chance of being implemented within the confines of the planned economy, panel architecture and standard designs of the time. Prominent among the series of architectural exhibitions was the show Pseudo, Quasi and Meta Architecture, organised in 1978, displaying projects submitted to the competition with the same title announced with the aim of “revitalising architectural thinking” and exploring the borderlines of architecture. Even though the jurying process of the exhibitions became stricter, the planned events were implemented almost without exception. Nowadays it is difficult to ascertain how those arts events that regularly went beyond the boundaries set by cultural policy were nevertheless accorded a place in the club. We will never know what compromises or verbal agreements were actually made behind the scenes between the directors of the dormitory and perhaps the Ministry of the Interior or party organs. The operations of the club could have been brought to a halt with the stroke of a pen, but that did not happen. A major role in maintaining continuity was probably played by people, equally accepted in professional and cultural policy circles, who frequently opened the exhibitions, regularly held lectures in the dormitory and published in the Bercsényi periodical. People fitting this description in the eighties were Máté Major, Lajos Németh (his name can be read in the documents relating to the Bercsényi Club right until the eighties), László Beke and Zoltán Szentkirályi (he taught at the Technical University’s Faculty of Architectural History and was in charge of the exhibition circle on behalf of the university).

In the period between 1981 and 87 – when the organisers included, Ferenc Salamin, Tibor Szalai, László Vincze and Lajos Hartvig – the changes that came about in the Hungarian art scene in general at the turn of the decade were reflected in the events organised in the Bercsényi Club. Contemporaneous analyses spoke of a period after “the death of the Avant-garde”, with the leading role being taken over by the Trans-avant-garde and new painting. The exhibition emblematically titled The Avant-garde is Dead held in the club in 1983 was an attempt to make sense of the new situation.

The Bercsényi Club continued to welcome young, unrecognised artists, including students of architecture, for example István Ocztos, Tibor Szalai and László Vincze, who under the name of Brettschneider – and in cooperation with Ference Salamin and István Kotsis – pursued activities in music and the fine arts. Young photographers – Lenke Szilágyi, Tibor Miltényi and Zoltán Bakos – were given the opportunity to exhibit at the club, and it was here that the Vető-Zuzu duo organised their first exhibition, while Mail Art exhibitions by the Xertox Group were also regularly put on. Solo exhibitions were also organised in the club from the work of architects who at the time worked outside of their profession designing film sets and making stage designs, such as Attila Kovács (1982), Gábor Bachmann (1982) and László Rajk (1981). Performance art enjoyed a new golden age in the eighties. At this time, audiences were able to view performances in the club by Béla Kelényi, János Szirtes, the Xertox Group, Gábor Tóth and others.

With the changes in cultural policy, the art scene and institutions, the Bercsényi Club, which was one of the prominent venues of underground art, eventually lost its former position. It was never suitable for organising painting exhibitions due to its physical parameters, which was also one of the reasons it was used as a venue for the experimental arts. By the mid-eighties, artists who up to this point had only appeared at venues similar to the Bercsényi Club were now able to exhibit at state institutions too.

The club continued to offer quality events and remained open to young, unrecognised artists, though its former, somewhat homogeneous audience disintegrated and its strength as an underground exhibition venue where communities were built completely waned. Artists took advantage of the new opportunities available to them and those who were now able to exhibit at official venues were no longer ‘restricted’ to the underground sphere.

The Bercsényi Club was continuously present in the Hungarian art scene for 24 years. With the commencement of renovation work on the dormitory building in 1987 the traditions it had followed for almost two and a half decades, which had delineated the club’s position in the underround cultural environment, were forced to a break. The exhibition venue re-opened in the 1990s but by that time it was just one of the many other galleries that had mushrommed at the time. In 1991-92 the exhibitions of the club/gallery were organised by the editorial board of the periodical Magyar Műhely (Hungarian Workshop). The by now legendary ‘dormitory club' has operated under several managements as the Bercsényi 28-30 Gallery since 1993.