Contemporary Hungarian art
Ateliers Pro Arts (APA) is an interesting art gallery, studio, and restaurant located in the heart of Budapest's up-and-coming District 8, a formerly decadent and shady neighborhood that is currently filling up with artists, young creative types, and entrepreneurs. The philosophy behind Ateliers Pro Arts is simple: support, promote, and display the finest young Hungarian artists working today.
The gallery was built in an old 19th-century pipe factory and is divided into three spaces: the upstairs gallery, the artists' studios built around the central courtyard (which still has the original smokestack intact), and a cafe-restaurant where you can grab a home-made meal or a coffee. The resident artists range from sculptors and painters to antique restorers and graphic designers, and on some days they open their studios to the visiting public so you can go and get a glimpse of their artistic process and works in progress. Even if the studios aren't officially open, if you hang out in the courtyard and strike up a conversation, they'll generally let you in to have a look (at least that was the case when we visited).
