A selection from the Mercedes-Benz Art Collection is being presented to the public for the first time in Budapest through the exhibition Power Lines, which opened at the Merlin Theatre on Tuesday. The exhibition, running until 31 August, features works by more than 30 internationally recognized contemporary artists.

Among the exhibitors are David Hockney, Robert Longo, Sylvie Fleury, John M Armleder, as well as Hungarian and regional artists including Ilona Németh, Katalin Kortmann-Járay, Karina Mendreczky and Rita Süveges.

Speaking at a press preview, Managing Director of Mercedes-Benz Hungária Fabiola Attorri said the Budapest presentation carries special significance as the company celebrates the 140th anniversary of the registration of the world’s first automobile, the Mercedes-Benz Patent-Motorwagen.

She said the company’s commitment extends beyond engineering innovation into the fields of culture and art. Founded in 1977, the Mercedes-Benz Art Collection has since grown into one of Europe’s most significant corporate art collections, containing more than 3,000 works by around 800 artists.

According to Head of the Mercedes-Benz Art Collection Anne Vieth, the title Power Lines refers both to the Merlin building’s former role as a transformer station and to the themes explored in the exhibition. The showcased works focus on industrialization and its consequences through interconnected perspectives on migration, energy, modernism and ecology.

Curator Krisztián Török explained that the exhibition presents the collection through a Central and Eastern European lens, bringing together works connected to the region alongside pieces from the Mercedes-Benz collection.

One of the featured artists is Peter Roehr, whose repetitive collages of Mercedes advertisements reflect on industrial reproduction and mass production. Works by Robert Longo reinterpret the automobile through its internal mechanics rather than its exterior design, while David Hockney contributes a photographic collage that challenges traditional visual perspective.

The exhibition also includes works by Bosnian-born artist Selma Selman, who transforms salvaged Mercedes car parts into artworks incorporating painted texts and symbolic imagery. One featured piece, Ophelia Awakening, depicts a bleeding finger painted onto an engine component, inspired by an injury the artist sustained while dismantling a car.

Another highlight is Sylvie Fleury’s three-channel video installation Swiss Polish Mediation, which juxtaposes iconic Mercedes models with ritualistic cleaning gestures and fashion-inspired imagery.

The exhibition further examines the relationship between technology and daily life through photographs by Benedikt Partenheimer, depicting illuminated vending machines in Japan as symbols of invisible industrial systems embedded in everyday urban environments.

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