Street Art Festival Budapest

For the last few years, the Colorful City Festival gave Budapest new murals. Each year there was a theme e.g. in 2017 the focus was on wine and gastronomy, although sometimes this might not be clear, so we'll tryto break down the meaning of each piece of urban art one by one. Some of them are sadly gone now and hide behind a new layer of white paint and bricks of newly-built houses and hotels.

“We are introducing a number of novelties this year: we would like to address Budapest’s residents by involving them in this endeavor to further beautify Budapest and by inviting them to help us pick out the walls to be painted. Our aim is to renovate and adorn several public surfaces with these murals, thus making them more colorful and exciting parts of Budapest” said the Színes Város (aka Colorful City) group.

All photos by András Farkas

Other blog posts on street art:
Firewall Paintings in Budapest
Street art in Budapest
Colorful City Festival

Where is it? under Rákóczi bridge towards Kopaszi dam

What? The mural reflects on one of the biggest problems of today’s youth: less social interaction in real life. If we think of gastronomy we associate it with eating out, being together, having great conversation, good company.. Here, a person is on a blind date, he is already at the restaurant, not sure his date will show up. But maybe he is in a virtual world, alone.

Details? 180m2

Artist? Christian Böhmer aka Mr Trash, famous for his series on paper bags

Where was it? Kertész street

What? sci-fi version of the classic “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”. According to the book the „Best drink in existence” is the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster which was invented by the ex-President of the Universe Zaphod Beeblebrox. He thinks you should “never drink more than two Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters unless you are a thirty-ton mega elephant with bronchial pneumonia”.

Artists? Fat Heat, Mr. Zero, and ObieOne. Quote: “We’d like to share the recipe with the people of Budapest before the planet is destroyed to make way for the Vogons’ hyperspace bypass,” they said.

Where was it? Kertész street

What? The painting is titled „Freshness”. It’s about the experience of going to the market, but if you look close enough, in this case animals buy and sell vegetables. The artist’s message here is: live and let live.

Details? 230 m2

Artist? Vidam the Weird was born in BP but moved to Berlin with his parents. Vidám means glad, happy in Hungarian, that’s why he chose this name.

Where was it? Kertész street

What? On one side, the artist is cooking meat stew surronded by Hungarian ingredients like paprika and red wine. On the other side he is working on a painting about a happy paprika. You can observe the transformation of the paprika from the kitchen to the studio.

Details? 450 m2, 11 days

Artist? HRVB, Germany

Where was it? Nagydiófa utca

What? Dionysus, Greek God of Wine & the Grape Harvest. With one hand he holds the glass, the other squeezes the grapes while a leopard’s head is resting on his other. The animal used to pull his carriage. In this moment it’s still calm and Dionysus is still sober.. he is looking up to the Creator, he needs help with controlling himself.
p.s. This mural will be gone soon.

Details? 200 m2, took 8 days

Artist? Attila Balogh, Hungary