Best of Budapest & Hungary

A spectacular art action in Budapest by the artists of the youngart online gallery in collaboration with Absolut has resulted in the painting of a bench in Hajós Street, near the city’s Opera House. The initiative was inspired by Andy Warhol's Blue Painting, a rediscovered work from a few years ago depicting the Absolut bottle, which is being exhibited to the public for the first time in Europe in Stockholm.

    The public space initiative pays tribute to Andy Warhol's 'blue' painting, whose discovery in 2020 was a global sensation and which will be exhibited to the public for the first time thanks to Absolut and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. The painting will be on show at the Spritmuseum in Stockholm as the centerpiece of the new exhibition Andy Warhol.

    Warhol found pop culture and everyday objects an inexhaustible subject. He often photographed urban benches, for example, which he saw as the sites of exciting encounters, great conversations and intimate moments - inspiring, among other things, the bench painting project by Absolut and youngart.

    The realization of the project is attributed to the visual and street art artist Orsi Fleith (MixedFlo), who is known for her socially critical, dialogue-generating works. The bench she transformed pays homage to Warhol's well-known works and also to the rediscovered Blue Painting: painted in blue with expressive brushstrokes, it also evokes one of the iconic artist's most recognizable motifs, the banana, in blue and pink.

    "The aim of youngart is to connect young, talented artists with the public, to give them exposure, and our collaboration with Absolut reinforces this ambition. In addition, with this action we are also evoking the spirit of Warhol: we are bringing art closer to the people on the street with a completely ordinary public element that is used by everyone, and at the same time we are turning the bench on Hajós Street into a work of art", according to Panka Radics, the head of youngart gallery.