Szijjártó attends Hungarian art project opening in Vienna

Hungary’s minister of foreign affairs and trade on Thursday attended the opening of Hungarian artist Dóra Maurer’s project in Vienna, who wrapped the 93m tower of Wiener Städtische Versicherungsverein.

At the opening of the project called “With each other”, Szijjártó said the link between Austria and Hungary could not be stronger than “our shared wish for peace in our neighbourhood”.

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In a period fraught with challenges and difficulties, partnership and cooperation through art and its community-forging force is cause for celebration, he said.

Amid many challenges “one of which would have been too much already”, tensions have grown between the East and the West, Szijjártó said. Central Europe is always pushed to the periphery when the world is divided into “blocs”, he said, “and so dialogue and cooperation based on mutual respect and shared interests between East and West” is in the region’s interest, he said.

He praised the artist, Dóra Maurer, for her “fantastic work in both countries” and a career that “always helped to strengthen the cooperation and shared fate of Hungarians and Austrians.”

Szijjártó said the 4,000 sqm artwork on the tower called the Ringturm “was created as a symbol of cross-border dialogue”. “Hungarians and Austrians are bound by equally tight, seemingly complicated but colourful and inseparable links,” he added.