Where Three Counties Meet

In 2001, Gábor Tamási and a number of fellow photographers of various generations organised a camp with the aim of using photography to probe, expose, and document reality in a way similar to that explored previously by sociographic writers. Since then, these photographers have journeyed every year to a new village or quiet corner of Hungary to discover and to acquaint the public with what there is to be seen and experienced there. In 2002, the team worked in Kötcse, in 2003 in the area of Ménes Creek, and in 2004 in the Pest County city of Tura, the Heves County village of Boldog, and the Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok County city of Jászfényszaru, "where three counties meet". Of the several thousand photographs taken by camp participants, the selection presented here reflects a particular intensity of interest, depth of world-view, and variety of modes and styles of expression. The exhibition may be seen as something of a continuation of the Boldog/Images exhibition that closes on 22 May of this year.

Though each of the artists represented here subscribes to a different school of expression and works in a different genre and style, the ensuing diversity is subtended by the uniformity of a single theme and the identity of a single place. The works of photographers Irén Ács, Kati Baricz, Imre Benkő, Tivadar Domaniczky, István Fazekas, Gábor Fejér, Ferenc Fuszenecker, Balázs Gárdi, Dávid Horváth, Albert Kresz, Ferenc Lőrincz, Ferenc Markovics, Géza Németh, Zsuzsa Pető, Zoltán Pólya, Jutka Róna, Gyula Sopronyi, Gábor Tamási and Csaba Winkler are interpreted in terms of the intriguing triplicity of artistic personality, local character (Tura urban folk culture, railway worker traditions, regional modernisation, Boldog folk culture as photographed in the 1930s, and the Jász regional traditions embodied by the city of Jászfényszaru), and the typical day-to-day and celebratory customs of all three communities, including particularly those of the region's vegetable growers and flower gardeners.