The Elevator Chats

International group exhibition

Free admission:
October 22: 11 am-7 pm
Ticketed admission:
October 23: 11 am-9 pm
October 24, 25: 11 am-7 pm
Other location: Art Market Budapest, Millenáris „B” building (16 Kis Rókus Street, 1024 Budapest)
Curator: Emese Mucsi
Exhibiting artists: István Bielik (HU) & Paulina Metzscher (DE), András Ladocsi (HU) & Garry Loughlin (IE), Balázs Máté (HU) & Alina Maria Frieske (NL), Dániel Szalai (HU) & Marta Bogdanska (PL), Dorottya Vékony (HU) & Clémence Elman (FR)

The elevator pitch or elevator chat is an impromptu self-introduction technique performed in monologic or dialogic form, allowing the speaker to transfer substantial information to their interlocutor about themselves or the project they are working on. By today, speeches and talks of this kind have left the office building elevators and gained ground in many other situations in which we have little time to draw attention to who we are and what we are currently engaged in. While they are trying to get approved by The Establishment, it is relatively common that young emerging photographers find themselves in situations where they have to address directors and curators of leading institutions, art writers, magazine editors, collectors, accomplished artists, and fellow photographers ahead of a promising career. In the last few years, several platforms were created for photographers in Europe that provide opportunities for such decisive encounters. One of them is the quadrennial project FUTURES – European Photography Platform that started in 2018. This cooperation, which connects 11 photography centers across 11 European countries, set as one of its main goals to scout remarkable new talents and introduce them into the world of international photography, and into the art market in particular. Each institution participating in FUTURES selects five emerging artists per year (58 in total in this year) and then creates a number of situations for them–exhibitions, roundtable discussions, tutoring, portfolio review, workshops, virtual events–where they can establish professional relationships with people from different areas of expertise within photography, and with each other. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, many important personal encounters were missed this year. In response, for The Elevator Chats exhibition, we initiated five online dialogs in between ten FUTURES talents, creating five brief one-to-one conversations, that is, elevator chats. Placed next to one core picture from each artist’s latest project, the five elevator chats on the wall, like punchy interviews, will provide you with a swift insight into the current issues dealt with, the artistic practices pursued, and the different techniques applied by the talented emerging photographers of The Old Continent.

Emese Mucsi, curator

Art Market Budapest

Founded in 2011, Art Market Budapest is an international contemporary fine arts fair presenting a unique compilation of artists and exhibition spaces in one of Europe’s most special exhibition halls every year, Besides internationally renowned artists, the fair’s aim is to support the emerging stars of the future by providing international exposure to new galleries and young artists. Art Market Budapest has been rethinking social and geographical borders and created a new cultural region. The result of this process is the concept of young Europe which builds on fresh artistic inspirations coming from post-communist countries from the Baltic states to the Balkan, in the south from Turkey and Israel, in the east from Middle-Asian countries as much as from the new and progressive generation of artists from more developed Western countries. And what can be more engaging than a contemporary art fair that is global and local at the same time?

Tickets on Art Market Budapest