Gallery Weekend Budapest

Gallery Weekend Budapest

Gallery Weekend Budapest

A festival in celebration of the Budapest gallery scene, five years running  

8-9 September 2018

Gallery Weekend Budapest – a contemporary art festival organized by the Association of Hungarian Contemporary Galleries with the support of the Municipality of Budapest and B. Braun – will once again take place this September.

GWB JUBILEE

Gallery Weekend Budapest (GWB), the season opening festival of the contemporary galleries of Budapest, will once again be held on 8-9 September 2018. This is the fifth year that Budapest’s exhibition venues await audiences with a weekend of colourful programs. GWB is a special festival; it is the Hungarian version of the internationally popular genre of “Gallery Weekend”. During the two-day event, anyone interested can become acquainted with the world of contemporary art. On Saturday and Sunday, from 12 pm – 6 pm the most prominent galleries of Budapest welcome visitors for free presentations, tours and openings. GWB offers an opportunity for those not familiar with the art scene but interested in fresh visual approaches to overcome any reluctance they might have about exploring the contemporary art scene and enter the gallery spaces, where they are welcomed by kind and helpful guides. Group tours, led by volunteers, are organized to guide those new to the scene through the galleries.

VERSATILE PROGRAMS

GWB 2018 presents the colourful world of Budapest galleries, from local favourites to international legends – from the emerging international artists of the region to young Hungarian talents. The most prominent painter of the middle generation, Attila Szűcs, offers insight into his mystical world through his latest graphic works. Ágnes Eperjesi has decorated an old accounting sample book – which she found during her stay in Buenos Aires – one at a time, slowing the flow of time. Tamás Waliczky, an international pioneer of computer art, presents imaginary photo and film cameras, creating new apparatuses that rewrite reality, while János Szirtes, formerly a prominent member of the Lajos Vajda Studio, gazes back into the past: his performances come to life in the form of videos and prints. Another renowned painter of the middle generation, Csaba Nemes, pairs up found photographs from the Cold War in search of shocking similarities and differences between the opposite sides of the Iron Curtain.

The colourful tableaus of Ákos Ezer, who represents the youngest generation, grotesque figures are stumbling on weekend property, while Gábor Koós continues his experimentations in the black and white realm of monumental woodcuts. Renátó Csabai has reworked photos of celebrities, while Ágnes Verebics has created masks using her own face. Denmark-based photographer Dora  Kontha experiments with a roll of 35 mm film, calling forth unexpected patterns and colours from the raw material.

The rich selection of international artists include Françoise Gilot, a real Parisian classic who was also known for being Picasso’s lover, Petra Feriancova, a fine-spoken Slovak artist of remembering, and the extreme Milanese art collective, BB5000, with their peculiar, futuristic glass objects. The group exhibitions showcase works by artists of the region whose paintings have their roots in geometric abstraction (from Vladimir Houdek to Genti Korini). Socially marginalized groups (led by Lilla Szász) make their appearance on the gallery scene, and viewers are also presented with the unexpected products of contemporary mysticism (by artists such as Pauline Curnier Jardin, among others).

FIFTEEN LOCATIONS

The participating galleries – which operate according to international standards – are, once again, among the best in Budapest: Art+Text Budapest, Chimera-Project Gallery, Erika Deák Gallery, Glassyard Gallery, Horizont Gallery, INDA Gallery, Knoll Gallery, MissionArt Gallery, Ani Molnár Gallery, TOBE Gallery, Várfok Gallery and VILTIN Gallery. This year, two non-profit galleries add even more colour to the program: ISBN books+gallery and Trafó Gallery.

This year’s festivities also include a collective exhibition housed by a street-front gallery space on Béla Bartók Avenue – courtesy of the Zipernowsky House of Arts and Sciences. The exhibition, in celebration of the fifth anniversary of Gallery Weekend Budapest, will be curated by Brazilian visual artist Bruno Baptistelli.

The two chief supporters of this year’s GWB are the Municipality of Budapest and B. Braun.

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