This article describes a visit to the exhibition "CSÁTH The Death of the Magician" at the Petofi Literary Museum in Budapest in the context of a university course for pre-service teachers of English. The course itself focused on multimodal social semiotics and visual arts to equip students with confident knowledge and skills to use with a wide range of multimodal texts and museum collections in their teaching. The article demonstrates how a carefully planned visit can prepare students to engage with an exhibition dedicated to the life and work of a controversial literary figure. The dialogues and tasks aimed at creating a memorable extramural learning experience and empowering students with knowledge and skills to reflect on controversy from the perspective of an exhibition visit viewed as a multimodal experience.