VOLTA VOICES: ATTILA LEDÉNYI

Kamiar Maleki: Dear Attila, could you tell us more about how Art Market Budapest started and how you became one of the region’s top art fairs?

Attila Ledényi: We just recently completed the 10th edition of our fair, the past decade has been an amazing journey. Prior to establishing Art Market Budapest in 2011, we had been busy creating projects with the aim of making contemporary art more accessible to the public and to reestablish the tradition of art collecting in Eastern Europe. With a professional background in communications and a passion for art and collecting, I came to the conclusion that the best, coolest and most efficient instrument to achieve our goals is an art fair with its open atmosphere and broad selection of artworks. The global economic crisis was pretty deep in those years when I founded the fair but I believed that those who take the courage to create something new then, will be the winners of the future. So the first year was quite an adventure, but already as early as the second year we had more foreign than local exhibitors, and by about our fourth edition nobody was bigger or richer than us in Eastern Europe. And we have managed to further grow and keep our dominant position. 

KM: Did any new galleries participate this year that haven’t before and how did you recruit them?

AL: Over the past decade Art Market Budapest has hosted hundreds of exhibitors from nearly 50 countries spanning 5 continents. For the known reasons, it was not a particular aim in 2020 to gain new exhibitors, we were focusing mostly on mobilizing our already developed and trusted network. However, in addition to many of our “regular” exhibitors, some returned after many years, and there were some new additions as well. Among others, it was good to see again after a while such friends as Bastejs from Riga (also a regular at VOLTA), Horizont from Budapest and Gallery On The Move from Tirana. While our particularly well received newcomers included Art Link from Seoul with a spectacular selection of works by the Berlin-based artist Kaethe Wenzel, an amazing neo-avantgarde photo collection by Budapest’s new Einspach Fine Art and Photography, as well as Centrul de Interes from Cluj, Romania or Ketevan Iashvili Gallery from Georgia.

KM: As one of the few fairs to have gone ahead in real life this year, how hard was it to operate during a pandemic?  

AL: It was tough and pretty nerve-racking, but we were absolutely determined to do it no matter what. 2020 is the year of cancelled encounters in the art world, our community faces challenges most of us haven’t experienced before, many art fairs disappeared from this year’s calendar, while there is now a particularly high demand for the meetings and contacts only we can bring together. This is why we felt obliged to do all we can to enable creators, galleries and art lovers to meet and keep in contact with one another on the platforms provided by Art Market Budapest. We never had a doubt that this is our task to do.

KM: How did the lockdown influence the team dynamics?

AL: I’m a born optimist, and as it turned out this year, members of my team seem to share my view. The harder the circumstances were, the tougher the challenges became, my team got even more dedicated, internal solidarity made it feel as if we were really one big family. And this was somehow transmitted to our exhibitors and visitors, this is what made Art Market Budapest such a euphoric experience. Which is not an entirely new phenomenon: the feedback we usually receive from our exhibitors and regular visitors is that Art Market Budapest is particularly attractive because it has a SOUL, a special, friendly and welcoming atmosphere which many similar events seem to lack.

KM: How did the pandemic push the team to new boundaries? And how was working from home different than being present?

AL: Ours is a good-spirited and young team, creative and flexible, never scared of new challenges and unexpected situations. Rather the opposite, we like to think out of the box, and look for not just solving the problems, but actually building on them. We saw the opportunity in 2020 instead of getting paralyzed by the difficulties. When switching to home office was necessary, it really wasn’t so difficult, our core team represents a generation with an amazing online competency, and our extended team of over a dozen people is actually easier to keep together online than in-person.

KM: Can you tell us a bit about the challenges you have faced this year prior to opening the fair in October? 

AL: Organizing the fair was both a psychological and a physical warfare this year. Overcoming the fear of our exhibitors and visitors was not just the question of creating a COVID-safe environment but it also took almost endless extra communication efforts. But it worked, we lost only about 10 % of our usual viewership. Regulations regarding health protection, border-crossing, quarantine have been changing on a weekly, sometimes daily basis, a plan B was never enough, we had to build on so many possible scenarios. And finally we had to come up with an end result by the Preview Day of the fair that satisfied our audiences, our difficulties and challenges would not have justified any inconvenience or disappointment. But all together, although tiring, it turned out a fantastic and memorable experience, and a very successful event regarding participation and sales.

KM: Are you finding ways of supporting galleries and art fairs financially? Is there a support system in place? 

AL: There is hardly any system of financial support one can rely on, and certainly no long term commitments, at least not in this part of the world. While art fairs should be seen as obvious flagship projects in cultural exchange, tourism, city marketing, cultural diplomacy or creative industry development, decision-makers remain very difficult to convince about their usefulness and significance. Corporate sponsorship may be taken for granted in business centers like London, New York, Paris, Hong Kong, Brussels and a few others, but it is not so self-evident for corporate leaders in lesser developed or more peripheral areas far away from the company headquarters, unless you find an art collector in the management. So additional sources complementing the usual booth rental fees and ticket sales don’t come easy, we have to renegotiate regularly and always be creative. However, I hate to sound as if I’m complaining, we look excitedly and optimistically forward to every year, even if securing the financial background remains a big part of our job.

KM: I first started talking about an alliance between art fairs when I was running Contemporary Istanbul, do you feel that in this climate this is the way we should move? And how do you feel that one could do this?

AL:  Your “Star Alliance of art fairs” idea is excellent. Even if the number of art fairs may somewhat decrease and the market become a bit more consolidated, there will still be far more events than one can possibly cope with. A map or some kind of guidance, even if subjective, would help interested art lovers to select, and an internal cooperation between the participating art fairs based on mutual benefits would open up new possibilities, and would do it without anybody having to make extra investments. We absolutely believe in helping, sharing and cooperating, a network of cool boutique fairs could be something like a Relais & Châteaux system of hotels and restaurants, where quality, pleasure and memorable experiences are guaranteed. We would be happy to mobilize our community of visitors, collectors and even exhibitors to want to explore and take a closer look at what like-minded art fairs are willing to offer.

KM: Are you creating an online version of your fair?

AL: Yes, but not with the intention of replacing the in-person experience, that would be impossible. We developed our own viewing room, Art Market Budapest Virtual with the main intention of keeping our amazing community of exhibitors and audience together and stay in close contact with all those who could not be with us physically this year. The freshly launched digital platform also proved instrumental in reaching out to an even larger audience, and in engaging a number of not yet known exhibitors who we hope will be willing to join us in our actual exhibition halls in the future.