Beginning tomorrow, the CAFe Budapest Contemporary Arts Festival fills the city’s premier performance halls, venerable art galleries and laidback hangouts with avant-garde attractions. On the opening day of the event, the Sinfonietta Rīga put youthful fervour into their music at the Müpa concert hall.
On the same day, the public is welcome to visit a free exhibition, presenting photos and audio recordings of renowned Hungarian press photographer Robert Capa. The display, set up in a container on Erzsébet tér, is on view throughout the festival.
The following days, three major exhibitions are being launched within Budapest’s contemporary museums. The Ludwig Museum highlights Finnish photography and multimedia arts through the works of Salla Tykkä, whose films are inspired by her recurring dreams and childhood memories (6 October-6 January).
Meanwhile, Hidden Stories at the Kunsthalle focuses on artists influenced by the reform movement of the 19th century, creating art often themed around peace and spirituality (6 October-20 January).
Then from 9 October, the Hungarian National Gallery shows figurative paintings by the likes of Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud and post-war artists who were members of the so-called School of London movement. The 90 works exhibited here will be on display in Budapest until 13 January.
For more paintings, sculptures and photography, at the annual Art Market Budapest between 11 and 14 October, collectors, artists and creative minds meet amid a maze of viewing spaces set up within the Millenáris Park, where all artworks are offered for purchase.
For a live show, head to the Akvárium Klub on 9 October to hear Masego unveil his own style, trap-house-jazz. This American-Jamaican performer, once referred to as a fusion of Michael Jackson, Jamie Foxx and Pharrell Williams, plays the saxophone, drum and synthesisers.
Concerts are also staged at cargo boat-cum-concert venue A38. Brooklyn-based Shai Maestro treads the boards here on 10 October to spice up traditional jazz with contemporary tunes. Then the next day, Chad Lawson will be on a mission aboard the boat to re-establish the piano into the lives of the Spotify generation. Recordings by Lawson include both original compositions and re-interpretations of Bach and Chopin.
Appearing at a CAFe Budapest event doesn’t mean you have to skip being part of the city’s ruin-bar scene. For the festival, Instant hosts the Black Flower band, whose music is often inspired by Eastern and African religious traditions, as well as innovative jazz (11 October).
Concert venues also include the Budapest Music Center, where the Danish String Quartet perform on 14 October, while the Budapest Jazz Club hosts the inimitable Dean Brown, who has appeared in concerts with such stars as Marcus Miller and the Brecker Brothers (16 October).
Performing arts also feature. The Hungarian National Ballet premieres the Triple Dance show on 12 October, presenting three choreographies created by a trio of seminal artists representing modern ballet. The performances are being staged at Müpa on three consecutive days.
Another premiere brings a novel contemporary circus show to the Budapest audience. Hungary’s highly innovative Recirquel Company perform stunts as part of the ballet-like My Land production, best-rated by critics at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe. The presentation is at Müpa on 16, 17, 18, 19 and 21 October.
On 16 October, Három Holló Café sets Goethe’s Faust in peoples’s everyday reality for Faust 1 & 2, where the dramatis personae and the audience inhabit the same space and everything is within arm’s reach. The production is a collaborative work with PATHOS München, Munich’s largest independent theatre company.
To get a taste of Budapest’s history, a unique shadow theatre at the TRIP boat introduces how the city evolved from an ancient Roman site to a modern European capital.
On October 18 and 19, the Trafó will stage stunt-like scenes for Moeder (‘Mother’), a production by Belgian company Peeping Tom. This is the second part of a trilogy that opened with Vader (‘Father’) in 2014 and should conclude with Kind (‘Child’) in 2019.
