Vizivarosi Gallery 2008, 2004

Vizivarosi Gallery 2008

AIR, International Artists Residencies - Budapest/Balatonfured/Csopak - 2006-2007-2008

Vizivarosi Gallery, 1027 Budapest II. Kapas utca 55
June 26- July 19, 2008

Opening reception: June 26 at 6:00pm
Opening remarks: Dr. Katalin Geller - art historian
and
Mark Tauber, Cultural Attashe - US Embassy, Budapest
Curator: Beata Szechy - HMC

Exhibiting artists:
Gloria Adams, Natalie Ball, Hugo Xavier Bastidas, Angela Basile, Oliver Beer, Marie Becker-Pos, Courtnee Bennett, Hadassah Berry, Kathryn Blume, David Bowen, Gratia S. Brown, Dara L. Chappie, Nicholas Conbere, Bridget Conn, Erinn M. Cox, Leigh Craven, Lynda D'Amico, Arlissa H. Dockery, Ben Donaldson, Rebecca Doris, Eva Egerszegi, Kristina Estell, Wanda Finta, Annette E. Fournet, Patti Fox, Robert Gero, Erin M. Gigl, Jen L. Grabarczyk, Jenine Haard, Belinda Haikes, Sandra Hawkins, Isabela B. Hoban, John Hoban, Paul Hooven, Su-Chen Hung, Steven Ihde, Lisa Kereszi, Kit Kingsbury, Robyn Kinsela, Nate Larson, Alicia Maroto, Carole Mathey, Elena Maza, Bruce McKaig, Corrina Mensoff, Nataniel Moiane, Stephanie Mustric, Ray Neufeld, Trever Nicholas, Liz Obert, Amanda Parker, Christopher Pelley, Tim Portlock, Ricardo Quinonez, Jennifer Rospert, Shimon Sakakibara, Sarah Sharp, Kathryn Schmidt, Jay Schmidt, Magda Seehawer, Jonpaul Smith, Clayton Sparks, Donna Szoke, Kazumi Tanaka, Paul Tepper, Cathy Tedford, Dilek Turkemenoglu, Kristelle M. Ulrich, Larissa Uredi, Natsuko Yoshino, Jennifer Vanderpool, Heather Veneziano, AmAndA ViettA, Svetlana Vinokurtsev, Mark Warwick, Deb Whistler

Invitation card

The summer and winter art colonies of the Hungarian Multicultural Centre, which have been in operation for quite a few years now, belong to those flourishing artist' communities that bring artists of various traditions and cultures together.

These type of colonies have greatly contributed to the understanding of artistic trends and contributed to forming communities of artists even when the blocks of East and West were otherwise hermetically sealed from each other.

These relatively short summer and winter colonies essentialy differ from their 19th century predecessors which were primarily cradles of dissident ideas and manners of painting. Those communities worked for a common artistic goal, for example played a significant role in creating the then new trends of Realism, Symbolism and Art Nouveau.

At first sight these present day colonies may look superfluos in our age when styles and tendencies freely flow and artists working in various parts of the world meet similar problems and express their thoughts and feelings using similar techniques of painting. Still, meeting in person has some special aim and significance for artists in our globalized world as well.

The artists participating can meet the cultures of other countries and compare prejudices with reality. They can study a territory very similar in general to their own artistic practice yet the different cultural traditions and artistic personalities make it different and intriguing.

The artists who come here bring their own world and form of expression and can enter into dialogue with the others, thus gaining a new perspective of their own art too. Such encounters provide opportunities for renewal or confirmation of beliefs and practice.

As we can see in the works of the artists here exhibiting, the site has also inspired the participants. The works depicting the blue Danube, the countryside near lake Balaton, as well as the photos which show homeless people sleeping in front of the illuminated Fisherman's Bastion and the Parliament in Budapest attest to this inspiration.

Today it is not possible to discover new worlds and different civilisations like the 19th century Orientalist painters did or what Paul Gauguin could find in Brittany and the South Sea islands. We are living in global monotony which may make us feel at home everywhere in any large town and any cultivated land. The experience of the familiar, however, provides a subtitle of difference any shade of defamiliarisation may deepen understanding and colour approaches.

Like the colour gray contains innumerable variety, the spiritual and material uniformity of our present world also hides a great richness of multifaceted reality that contemporary art could unravel and reveal.

Werner Hofmann wrote in his study about Modern Art that ever since the avant-garde the creative impulse far exceeds the objects of art. We might continue Hofmann's line of thought and say that already the journey, the foreign site, the sheer fact of being there can create art. The sensation, the experience will out, whether expressed in an object of art, or not.

Last but not least I would like to thank those artists who came here, who worked, or are working, in the artists' colony splendidly guided by Beáta Széchy, and who with their works we can see here have brought to us a touch of the USA, Canada, Japan, Germany, Mozambique, China, Austria, England, Turkey, Italy and Scotland.

Thank you very much everyone for allowing us to make your acquaintance.

(Katalin Geller, arthistorean opening speech at Vizivarosi Gallery on June 26, 2008)