While the international art fair scene has been significantly reshuffled by the COVID crisis, Art Market Budapest, successfully completed as an in-person event in both years of the pandemic, has continued to strengthen its international position, and is returning in October with increased exhibition space and richer programs, securing its place in the art fair calendar as Central and Eastern Europe’s leading international contemporary art fair.
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From October 6 to 9, 2022, Art Market Budapest once again presents Budapest as one of Europe’s most attractive meeting places for lovers of contemporary art: as many as 116 exhibitors from nearly 30 countries of 4 continents bring thousands of works by over 500 artists to the amazing exhibition spaces of Bálna Budapest in the center of the Hungarian capital. In response to the extraordinary interest of exhibitors, Central and Eastern Europe’s leading art fair is set up this year on four floors of the popular building located on the River Danube, covering a total of around 8,000 square meters.
Among the many accompanying programs of the art fair, Art Photo Budapest, Central and Eastern Europe’s only international photography fair, the Inside Art international art industry conference and the 360 Design Budapest design exhibition are also located in the fair’s central building while a number of satellite shows spread out to other exhibition venues throughout the city.
Art Photo Budapest, founded in 2014 as a dedicated photo section of Art Market Budapest, to emerge as a popular meeting place for the international photographic community by now, continues to maintain its unique position as the only international photography fair in the Central and Eastern European region. This year, in the midst of a selection arriving from 3 continents, one of the many delicacies of the exhibition program is a collection of works observing the links between applied (fashion) photography and photo art, making the intertwining of the two areas visible and tangible.
A set of related events at Art Market Budapest focus on the relationship between contemporary design and fine art. While the blurring of the boundaries between design and art is a known professional phenomenon, Art Market Budapest, which is constantly looking for ways to expand the consumer market for fine art, sees a special opportunity in reaching out to a design-savvy audience. It is for this reason that the design show 360 Design Budapest accompanies Art Market Budapest at the fair location.
The four-day Inside Art international art and art industry conference, which traditionally takes place during Art Market Budapest, aims, with the participation of major international experts and stakeholders, to set trends. A highlight of this year’s conference program is a full day seminar titled Building on Art, focusing on the relationship between real estate development and the world of art, and the value-adding effect of art and artistic intervention in newly developed buildings and infrastructure, with the declared aim of reviving and expanding the culture of adding artistic content to real estate and infrastructural developments.
Serbia is invited as guest of honor of Art Market Budapest in 2022: in addition to over a dozen exhibitors participating in the fair, supplemented by exhibitions and events at external locations, an art festival is created under the name MOST.SERBIA. The invitation of Serbia as guest of honor and the associated MOST.SERBIA festival, in the light of the artistic offering now presented in Budapest, highlights the fact that the quality and richness of contemporary art in Serbia justifiably demands greater visibility in the European art scene, and the program also confirms the leading international role of Art Market Budapest in presenting and promoting the art of the Central and Eastern European region.