Ani Molnár Gallery, established in 2009, is one of the most active galleries in Budapest that also developed a high profile abroad soon after opening. While emphasizing a core value of local and international representation for Hungarian and Hungarian-descent artists, the gallery broadened its scope over the years. Practicing in the Central and Eastern European region, Ani Molnár Gallery collaborates with many well-established artists. Nonetheless, helping and advocating for emerging talents from younger generations is also a pillar of the gallery’s activity.
Regardless of medium, genre, or style Ani Molnár Gallery selects artists for collaboration with an eye to current social, cultural, and artistic issues to continue to be one of the cultural flagships of the vibrant Hungarian art scene. The gallery also devotes special attention to cultivating the heritage of geometric and lyrical abstraction by representing artists of these movements from various generations. Overall, Ani Molnár Gallery upholds a professional program that creates a platform for contemporary art trends through exhibitions, art fairs, institutional collaborations, and contact with collectors.
Ani Molnár Gallery has become a significant venue in the visual arts scene with bimonthly solo and group exhibitions that rely on elaborate curatorial concepts involving represented and invited artists. Besides these shows, organizing art events in external venues allows the gallery to promote contemporary art to a larger audience. For instance, the gallery ran the well-known non-profit project Park Gallery in the MOM Park shopping center, showcasing site-specific installations and sculptures by major Hungarian contemporary artists from 2007 to 2014. This undertaking was awarded the Summa Artium Prize in the Project of the Year category in 2009.
Since one of the primary goals of the gallery is the international representation of Hungarian contemporary art, it aimed to engage with the international art scene from the beginning. From 2010 onwards, the gallery has frequently participated in international art fairs like Art Brussels, LOOP Barcelona, and Artissima – in fact, 2023 marks its sixth occasion exhibiting at ARCOmadrid, its eighth at Art Brussels, and its ninth at fairs taking place in Vienna. Ani Molnár Gallery was also the first Hungarian gallery to partake in the Armory Show in New York in 2014 and 2015.
The artists represented by the gallery regularly exhibit at major international art events, for instance, the Venice Biennale, Manifesta, Ars Electronica, and the Biennials of Sao Paolo, Liverpool, Turku, Bucharest, Moscow, and Lyon. Their works are part of prestigious private and public collections in Hungary and abroad, including the MoMA in New York, the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the Pompidou Centre in Paris, MUSAC and MACBA in Spain, KUMU in Estonia, the Hungarian National Gallery, and the Ludwig Museum.
At Artissima 2017, Sári Ember’s installation Ani Molnár Gallery presented won the Campari Award for young artists. Just a year later, the video Venom by Péter Forgács received the Acquisition Award 2018 at LOOP Barcelona and became part of the LOOP collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona (MACBA). At the Venice Biennale, five artists from the Ani Molnár Gallery’s roster represented Hungary, and four artists did other countries.
The gallery has been a member of the I.G.A. – International Galleries Alliance since 2021. In 2013 the gallery was the first Eastern European art institution to receive the F.E.A.G.A. Innovation and Creativity Award in Basel. In addition, the owner and director of the gallery, Annamária Molnár, has been a F.E.A.G.A. board member since 2017. In this position, her activity involves dealing with the current issues of the international contemporary art scene with a specialized focus on the Central and Eastern European region. Molnár was also the president of the Association of Contemporary Galleries between 2011 and 2014 and a member of the Talking Galleries advisory committee between 2014 and 2016.
