The largest independent contemporary art event in Hungary, OFF-Biennale Budapest, announces its third edition, titled INHALE!. OFF-Biennale in 2021 premiers 14 projects that look at ecology, Eastern European nationalisms, and political imagination; with a focus on artistic propositions that do more than just point to these complex, entangled problems.

The 14 projects, specifically created for this occasion, will be accompanied by public programs as part of the Living Room project. Living Room is a preliminary event of documenta fifteen at OFF-Biennale Budapest, which will take place in conjunction with OFF’s invitation to documenta fifteen as a lumbung member.

OFF-Biennale will be planning its offline and online programs in accordance with the unfolding pandemic situation and emerging guidelines, constantly adapting to them.

OFF-BIENNALE BUDAPEST

OFF-Biennale Budapest is the largest independent contemporary art event in Hungary. It started in 2014 as a grassroots initiative, a “garage” biennale set up by a small group of art professionals in order to create a platform for exchange between art practitioners and other members of society, to strengthen the local independent art scene. OFF has never applied for Hungarian public funding and steered clear of state-run art institutions. This is a political statement as much as a practical solution to protect freedom of artistic expression and professional integrity.

INHALE!

The third edition of OFF-Biennale Budapest, INHALE!, takes the seminal political poem »A Breath of Air!» by 20th-century Hungarian poet Attila József as its starting point. »A Breath of Air!,» cried the poet and along with him cried all those who felt the social-political atmosphere tighten around them in the 1930s. »A Breath of Air!,» we cry today when surveillance is taking on global proportions, social inequalities are greater than ever, and all of these are accompanied by a new peril: beneath the looming shadow of the climate catastrophe, inhaling fresh air has become the privilege of a select few.

A detailed program will be available closer to the opening date here.

Cover picture: Museo Aero Solar, 2007-ongoing; in Prato, Italy, 2007, Courtesy Aerocene Foundation, photo by Janis ELKO, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 by Aerocene Foundation.