Exhibitions

The Village of Boldog - Images

5/Nov/2004 - 22/May/2005
During the past century, the village of Boldog near Budapest has been a favoured target destination for all manner of individuals bearing cameras, including ethnographers, professional photographers, reporters, photographic artists, and amateur photography enthusiasts. What did these people see of the village and the lives of its inhabitants? What kinds of pictures did they take? As Boldog came to be viewed as a typical Hungarian village with an ethnographically relevant culture, what types of films did it appear in?


Following World War I, Boldog took its place alongside Mezőkövesd, the Sárköz, Kalocsa and the Hortobágy (Great Plain) as one of the locations most frequently featured in ethnographic literature, photographic journals, albums, and domestic and foreign photography exhibitions. Photographs of Boldog have appeared in magazines, literature on folklore and dress, newsreels, tour books, and national image-building publications, contributing significantly to the spread of the image of the typical Hungarian village.


Many of these photographs are found in the Museum of Ethnography and the archives of other public collections, while others belong to private individuals. The present exhibition therefore draws upon an unparalleled body of material, presenting some 350 photographs produced for a wide variety of purposes. Images taken for various reasons are displayed together, so that each photograph may be viewed in relation to the rest. Because of the complexity of the visual system employed, artistic quality was allowed to influence the selection process to only a limited extent.


The resulting approach allows different photographic perspectives to meet, while demonstrating how photographs, like other objects, live diverse social lives. The photographs are grouped by mode of use, though only loosely, as any one picture may be interpreted and used in several ways, making it difficult to draw lines between one category and another. With the exception of a few early family photographs, the photographs presented here were taken during the three-quarters of a century following the First World War. Also prominently featured are films produced in Boldog between 1932 and 1974. Taking Pictures [Benne van ebben, hogy a falusiak maguk mennek magukat lefényképezni?!] Until the end of the 1920's, the village of Boldog, situated between the Galga and Zagyva Rivers, was difficult to reach. Villagers first encountered photography in the studios of nearby cities, such as Hatvan and Aszód, or in the form of the occasional travelling photographer. At first, photography was used solely as a means for recording family events or arranging official matters. Most early family photographs show young couples, family groups gathered for weddings or other special occasions, husbands and wives, parents with their children, brothers and sisters, or other individuals whose images would be sent to distant relations. While these pictures are often all the memory some villagers have of long-gone relatives, of the youth of their grandparents and great-grandparents, they are also important sources of information on the history of folk costumes, familial tradition, and rural mentality.

Curator: Zoltán Fejős

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