Fingerprints 2025 – The Year’s Impression: Marks of Time
Discover a Living Time Capsule in Budapest
If you are visiting Budapest in early 2026 and love contemporary art, Fingerprints 2025 is a fascinating exhibition to add to your itinerary. Presented at Golden Duck Gallery and later at SORS Gallery, this international project turns the entire year of 2025 into a living time capsule, capturing the present moment before it fades into memory. Curated by Catherine Váradi, the exhibition invites you to experience a year not through history books, but through emotions, images and artistic impressions.
Instead of looking back with nostalgia, Fingerprints 2025 documents the year in real time, avoiding the filters of hindsight, politics or revision. It offers an immersive way to feel what 2025 was like as it was happening, making it especially appealing for visitors interested in culture, social change and visual storytelling.
Concept: Art as the Memory of an Era
At the heart of Fingerprints 2025 is a strong idea: art is what truly preserves the spirit of a time. We do not remember past decades because of their technologies or statistics, but through jazz, posters, album covers, films and visual icons. In the same way that Art Deco and jazz define the 1920s, or psychedelic graphics and protest songs define the 1960s, this exhibition aims to define 2025 through its images.
Curator Catherine Váradi has selected artists in advance and guided them to respond to key moments of the year as they unfolded. This makes the exhibition a “temporal context”: a way to understand 2025 not as a list of events, but as a lived atmosphere. For art-loving travellers, it offers a powerful, reflective counterpoint to more traditional sightseeing in Budapest.
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The Collection: A Year Told Through Art
The Fingerprints 2025 collection is carefully structured to mirror the passage of time throughout the year. Instead of one-off works, the exhibition offers a layered, almost cinematic view of 2025.
The collection includes:
- 52 artworks, each dedicated to one specific week of 2025, capturing its visceral energy.
- 12 artworks that reflect the mood and shifting atmosphere of each month.
- 1 artwork that distils the entire year into a single, definitive impression.
A unique aspect of the project is that the curator chose the creators, not the finished artworks. The pieces themselves are only revealed at the exhibition, which means that every visit is a genuine discovery. Whether you come for the grand opening or during the exhibition period, you step into a space where the “present” has been frozen in visual form.
Exhibition Dates, Locations and Event Details
Fingerprints 2025 unfolds across two galleries in Budapest, giving you more than one opportunity and venue to experience the project.
At Golden Duck Gallery:
- Exhibition dates: January 20 – February 8, 2026
- Grand Opening: January 30, 2026 at 18:00
At SORS Gallery:
- Exhibition dates: February 10 – 25, 2026
During the grand opening at Golden Duck Gallery on January 30, entry to the exhibition is free, making it an ideal evening program if you are in the city at that time. The opening event gives visitors and guests the chance to be among the first to see the complete collection and to experience the surprise of the unveiled artworks.
Tickets and Practical Information
Entrance to the Fingerprints 2025 exhibition is ticketed on regular days, with an accessible pricing structure:
- Adults: 1000 HUF
- Students, elderly visitors and disabled visitors: 500 HUF
Tickets can be purchased at the gallery counter, with payment available by cash or card. During the Grand Opening on January 30 at Golden Duck Gallery, visitors can view the entire exhibition free of charge.
For international visitors planning what to do in Budapest in January and February, this exhibition offers:
- An easy-to-access, affordable cultural program.
- A contemporary perspective on the year 2025 through international and local artistic voices.
- A calm, reflective break from more crowded tourist attractions.
Why Visit Fingerprints 2025 During Your Budapest Trip
Fingerprints 2025 is ideal for travellers who enjoy thoughtful, concept-driven art and want to connect with the recent past in a more emotional way. Instead of simply walking through a gallery of individual pieces, you move through a structured narrative of 52 weeks, 12 months and one defining impression of the year.
It is a chance to see how artists respond to the same reality you may have just lived through, but from different cultural and personal angles. Whether you are an art enthusiast, a culture lover, or simply curious about how 2025 will be remembered visually, this exhibition can add depth and meaning to your stay in Budapest.