Géger Melinda: Változó Világ-Képek • Nemzetközi Kiállítás, 2004

Changing World-Images The Rippl-Rónai Museum of Kaposvár has been organising a series of large-scale international art events prepared for the project "Culture 2000" launched by the Brussels Committee of the European Union. Involving one province from each of four countries, Estonia, Hungary, Romania and Sweden, the realised programme was targetted to organise an art exhibition and conference which, in the spirit of the EU, would create live professional contacts among artists from several countries. Our organising partners are the provinces Västemorrland, Sweden; Valda, Estonia; and the counties Harghita, Romania and Somogy, Hungary. Nearly 40 artists sent their works to the Kaposvár exhibition titled Changing World-Images. The series of events takes artistic tools to answer the most current issues of the early third millennium: a shared future following the search for ways characteristic of the transitory ages. The man of today lives among continuously changing states of existence, which became a shared experience for our generation. The reality we experience day by day is a continuous transformation presenting interrelated positive and negative elements. Powerful reflexion of the life experience of everyday existence has always been one of the most typical characteristic features of European art, which stimulates this cultural community to react with a traditionally deep empathy to historical moments like this. In summary, the common topic of our choice provides opportunity for artists living in four regions of four countries to compose their artistic ideas, express them through their individual aspects and in such a way contribute to a shared concept of our European prospects. This inspired the main title of the exhibition: Changing World-Images Given an international exhibition, the statement "as many artists, so many worlds, so many images" sounds all the more a cliché. Referring to the exhibition Changing World-Images, however, an interesting message still comes through, that is the more remote a region a work of art arrives from, the more marked the new idea it carries appears to us. Although the works display a number of solutions and concepts, the topic of the exhibition posed a kind of barrier for the artists. Even a shared historic past may not be decisive in the aspect. Based on geographical location, the works of art and ways of expression seem more likely to find their places around the poles of north and south. Differences include the ways of raising issues and the sharpness of forming ideas. The Romanian and Hungarian material is more traditional, and there is also a well discernible tendency to show a more closed, introverted attitude. More of the northern artists concentrate on the ideas suggested in the title of the exhibition, and consequently make more concrete comparisons between past and present, individual life and official existence, east and west, north and south, that is along the actual live issues of diversity. Due to different historical experiences, individual way of life, different strategies of survival, works are created from a more individual aspect in one case, while from a broader view in the other.