the street is our gallery

As part of our established colaboration with ”Meeting of Styles” – we got in touch with the organizer of Hungary’s upcoming event, Márton Árvay! Find out more about the person who organises one of the biggest Graffiti events the country has seen so far as we also speak about his past and his future plans. In the mean time he will coordinate a wall with a size of more than 1000 squaremeters as it waits to be transformed into one big piece of art.

– Introduce yourself to us. 

Im Márton Árvay, graffiti writer for 15 years now, based in Budapest, Hungary. Member of the CFS (colored effects crew) and 17ERS crew. The past few years, I started to organize events like the Meeting of Styles in Hungary and launch projects like allcaps.hu

– What is street art for you? What impact has it had in your life?

I have more like graffiti roots; But streetart, graffiti or any kind of urban art is my life. You know when you fell in love with something when you are a teenager, and you still in love with it after 20 years, its like when kids like to be an astronauta. And when you working for it and live that kind of life, its like a dream. Of course you have to make deals at the mean time, but I feel really lucky to know what I want to do when I was only 13-14 and try to stay true for it!

– What made you start organizing street art festivals?

After I visited some great events around Europe, I realized Hungary have to be in this circle and we need good events too. Its really importante in the art scene to make connections between artists, so exhibitions, events or festivals are necessary. I realized quickly, if I dont do it, no one else will, so i started ☺ As an artists, i know what the artists need and luckily i always enjoyed to organize things, so maybe its my destiny to do it!

I think there is a lot of good artists in Hungary, who desserve to be in contact with the international scene, and good events/jams/festivals are the best opportunity to make it possible.

– Which street artists do you admire most and why?

For me, my alltime favorite is Revok. For me he is a number one in many diferente ways: on the streets globally, and his studio works are amazing too. And for me its very important to hear the artists thoughts and views about the scene and their work, and he was one of the guys who did a lot of video interviews and tell his thoughts about the graffiti and street art world to many media.

– Street art in the last few years has had a big impact on society, a lot of artists being in the spotlight and trying to make a carrier out of it. What do you think about this evolution?

Yeah, there is a big boom in the past 5 years. I think its good, because lot of the street artists deserve to make out of living from their art, but its hard for them to stay true their own style and their works. And of course, there is the flipside: many people try to make money from the artists work, without any knowledge about urban art or respecting the artist.

– Which cities do you think have the biggest activity and influence in the global street art scene?

Its hard to tell. Mostly I travel around europe and the online world cant give you a “real”
View about the cities around the world. I think in Europe, Paris is a big center of many kind of urban art. Barcelona and Lisbon of course. Detroit is an other must have place, a mecca for graffiti and street artists.

– What are you working on nowadays?

Many projects are in progress; MOS Hungary of course and some other type of events. We started a media site call ALLCAPS.hu to represent the hungarian street and graffiti artists to the public. Would like to bring as many artists to Hungary as i can, and of course, try to support the hungarians to get out to the world ☺

– What is the biggest challenge when organizing a festival?

To get the budget for it. If you make and open event, without ticket, you have to have sponsors, to support you to make the event not just possible(without you putting your own money in it), but make it quality for the artists and for the visitors too.

– Do you remember any occasion in which something went horribly wrong?

Just at some other events, hopefully my events went well. I think if you do your job well, if something go wrong, nobody notice ☺

– Do you have a wild project that you dream of achieving some day?

To open a gallery. That would be super nice!

– What are your plans for the future?

Lot of things in progress, we will see, so I would like to keep it in secret 😉

-Is there a specific thought or message you would like to pass to our audience out there?

As Thomas Carlyle said “no pressure, no diamonds” Work hard and you will find the diamonds 😉 And support the art world!
Thank you Márton! It’s been great to get to know more about the mind and person behind such great projects.

‘’I Support Street Art’’ team.

Check out more info about this years MOS in Budapest here: http://www.meetingofstyles.com/blog/19-20-august-2017-budapest-hungary/

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