About
BUDAPEST: WHERE WEST MEETS EAST
The Budapest Art Fair has a track record in attracting prominent foreign galleries. Prestigious past exhibitors include Pascal Lansberg (Paris), Galerie Hilger (Vienna), Le Minotaure (Paris/Tel Aviv), Knoll (Vienna/Budapest/Moscow), and Gilden’s Arts (London) – to name but a few.
Now the Fair aims to exploit Budapest’s position as an international crossroads by filling an existing vacuum: the absence of a flagship contemporary fair for Central & Eastern Europe.
Inspired by the Tremplin (Springboard) section at the 2010 Paris Biennale, the new HEROES CORNER section will feature 20 of the most dynamic modern and contemporary art galleries in Central and Eastern Europe, plus five Western galleries specializing in East European art.
Each gallery will display a single work on a special stand in the centre of the Fair. Gallery owners will be present throughout the Fair to meet visitors and talk about their artists.
The twelve countries represented on HEROES CORNER are Bosnia, Bulgaria, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine and, from the West, France, Switzerland and the USA.
The geographical sweep on HEROES CORNER ranges from Sarajevo (Duplex/10m²) up to Riga (Alma, Tifāna, Rīgas)… and from New York (Art-Fira) across to Ekaterinburg in the Urals (Art-Slovar).
EASTERN PROMISE: ALL STYLES & MEDIA
The works on offer on HEROES CORNER span a 75-year period, from a 1935 Portrait of a Girl by Pavel Filonov's student Vladimir Luppian (Na Lenivke, Moscow) to a host of 'hot-off-the-press' works produced in 2010, including Sandor Bartha's In The Park (Ivan Gallery, Bucharest); Ritums Ivanovs' Madonna On Stage (Rīgas Galerija, Riga); and Kandinsky & Melamid's Russian Sudoku (Art-Fira, New York).
HEROES CORNER will provide a unique, thought-provoking overview of the finest artistic talent to have blossomed since the fall of the Iron Curtain.
A strong photography section features six galleries, with startling images like Katya Belkina's naked self-portrait on horseback, inspired by Petrov-Vodkin's Bathing the Red Horse (Fotoloft, Moscow); a harrowing depiction of Vladimir Putin by World Press Photo Award-winner Sergey Maximishin (RussianTeaRoom, Paris); and Boštjan Pucelj's triptych Missing In Action (Fotografija, Ljubljana).
Also available on HEROES CORNER will be graphic art, video (Adriana Jebeleanu's Copy Paste at Little Yellow Studio, Bucharest), and a variety of sculpture – from Paolo Vivian's iron Bar Code (Bulart, Varna – Bulgaria) to Małgorzata Warlikowska's six-part ceramic/silkscreen Eat Your Brain (Galeria BB, Krakow) via Nazar Bilyk's tall glass and fibre-glass figure Rain (Black Square, Kiev/New York).
One of Eastern Europe's newest art galleries, Prospekt of Bucharest, will be taking part – and one of the region's oldest, Slovakia's Gandy Gallery, founded (in Prague) 18 years ago. 'Central Europe deserves a great fair!' enthuses gallery owner Nadine Gandy.
To oversee the new section, and develop the Budapest Art Fair’s international profile, the Fair has appointed Simon Hewitt as International Advisor. Mr Hewitt is an Oxford University-trained art historian based in Geneva, and a respected international art critic with many years’ experience writing for Art + Auction and other leading American, British, French and Russian specialist publications. He says: ‘Budapest Art Fair is one of the oldest and most firmly established art fairs in Eastern Europe, and I admire the determination of owners Sandor & Kati Galambos to establish the Fair as the leading event of its kind in Central and Eastern Europe. These are exciting times, and I am thrilled at this opportunity to help bring international artists, gallerists and collectors to HEROES SQUARE.’