drMáriás

The Godot Institute of Contemporary Art will open a major anniversary exhibition by drMáriás on 29 January 2026 at 7 pm.

The exhibition is titled Long Live the Dictatorship!

It marks the artist’s 60th birthday.

It also marks the 40th anniversary of his band, Tudósok.

During the opening, Gergely Karácsony, the Mayor of Budapest, will give a welcome speech.

The artist’s creative work is presented by art historian Zoltán Rockenbauer.

Peter Tomaž Dobrila will speak about the international significance of drMáriás.

He heads the KIBLA Multimedia Centre in Maribor and is a Venice Biennale curator.

He was also the chief executive of the Maribor European Capital of Culture project.

Long Live the Dictatorship! brings together a retrospective and an introduction to a complex, layered artistic universe. Paintings, characters, visual and verbal motifs, and installations form a whole that reveals drMáriás’s distinctive, instantly recognisable vision. Humour both releases and heightens tension, prompting viewers to keep reflecting on what they see.

The exhibition takes up the entire 1,100 square metres of the Godot Institute. It ranges from early paintings imbued with a punk sense of freedom to later works that distil reflections on politics and history. The show places particular emphasis on previously unseen works made with paper lace, along with his latest paintings, videos and installations.

‘In drMáriás’s art, image, text, music and gesture work together, each reinforcing the others to create meaning. Humour offers no respite here. It is a way of communicating, a point of entry into a world of images and ideas where extremes, vivid colours, provocative language and irony leave no one indifferent.

‘The reactions his work keeps provoking are what make his art so alive, relevant and indispensable to contemporary Hungarian visual art,’ said Laczkovich Borbála, artistic director of the Godot Institute.

The exhibition is closely linked to the substantial art book Éljen a diktatúra!, published in December 2025.

The book now also takes shape as an exhibition.

drMáriás (Béla Máriás) is a visual artist, writer and musician. He has been a key figure in Hungary’s alternative and contemporary art scenes since the 1980s. His paintings, writing and music are closely connected, sharing an ironic humour, a bold use of colour and reflection on politics and society. He is a founding member and frontman of the band Tudósok.

In his work, the questions of Eastern European historical experience, identity and freedom emerge in a multidisciplinary artistic form.

Curators: Laczkovich Borbála and Kozák Gábor

Curatorial assistant: Gergő Lukács

Visitor information:

tickets here

The exhibition was originally scheduled to run from 30 January to 30 April 2026, Thursday to Sunday, 14:00–19:00.

Address: 1036 Budapest, Fényes Adolf utca 21.

godot.hu

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