The liberal independent mayor of Budapest’s 9th district, Krisztina Baranyi, has the odd habit of sponsoring public art pieces that go fundamentally against the views of average Hungarians. This pastime of hers started with a statue of a kneeling Statue of Liberty in rainbow colours, erected at a public square in her district of Ferencváros in April 2021 in honour of the Black Lives Matter Movement. In July 2023, she had a public park bench painted rainbow colours to show solidarity with the LGBTQ community.
The latest instalment of this saga came in April 2024, when
the municipal government’s public art grant was awarded to a statue titled ‘Turul G,’ by sculptor Csaba Árpád Horváth,
and was subsequently displayed at Ferenc Square. Mayor Baranyai announced the grant winner on her Facebook page, with this caption:
‘This year’s first prize winner of our public art competition is the sculpture Turul G! The fabled Turul carries off a Mercedes G-Class SUV. The Mercedes G-Class is nowadays associated with the Russian mafia, the rich, and oligarchs. This public sculpture will be on display for two weeks at Ferenc Square’.
However, it was not on display for two weeks. A mere two days after its unveiling, it was knocked down by an unknown group of vigilantes. The mayor commented on the new development on her Facebook page again, writing:
‘I sincerely hoped that those who said that the Nazis would come and destroy an artist’s work would not be right. They were right.
Tonight, a group of six people knocked down a sculpture in Ferenc Square that was part of the Public Art competition. A CCTV camera recorded the incident and took usable pictures, which were confiscated by the police for investigation. The question is whether they were disturbed by Turul or the Mercedes G.’
There is nothing to suggest that perpetrators had any Nazi or antisemitic sympathies. A better guess would be that they were fans of the local football club Ferencváros, given that the depiction of the mythical Turul bird in the piece closely resembles their team mascot, the bald eagle. Ferencváros is known to have a large and enthusiastic fan base who tend to have nationalist-conservative viewpoints. They are certainly sensitive to mocking displays of national or club symbols.
Needless to say, the composition was in bright pink-red-yellow colours, as per requirement in a public art contest by the Ferencváros municipal government, seemingly. Evidently, these pieces offend public taste, so it is unclear what Mayor Baranyai tries to achieve by continuously putting them on display. There may be some art galleries in Budapest where they would be welcome, but apparently not in public squares. However, destroying public property still is and should be a crime.
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