KÖTŐDÉSEK. A VIDÉKI MAGYARORSZÁG EMLÉKEZETE (Kiállítási katalógusok - Szentendre, Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, 2003)

will ever take place in this exhibition - the visitor can enjoy a collection of sober, disciplined art. The organisers marked out the program referring to the past and as such, it unites organically the rich and manifold diversity of styles, the works of very different artists belonging to several generations. Under the title Attachment we see an interesting, puzzling sub-title: Memories of the Hungarian countryside. The formulation suggests the obvious presence of the remembrance of a region remaining humane in the age of globalisation, of a living space having real connections to nature, but also the supposition that all this exists no more in reality, but in the memories. The keyword of the exhibition is thus: memory. The art philosopher Lajos Fülep wrote in 1911 in his great essay called Remembrance in the work of art: "...Remembrance is not only the expression of past things, but also of the present and every present intuition has to be transformed onto remembrance so that it can be expressed, briefly, so that it can become art. Therefore, as a consequence, intuition is not identical with expression, but remembrance is identical with it. The formula follows of that: every expression is remembrance." Hundred years after taking down these words, the statements of Lajos Fülep remain valid and applicable for the artists of Szentendre and their products, since they recall the layers and the world of phenomenon of the past and synthétisé them to contemporary art. "Pure images of memory live in an artist in a bigger variety and more independently from reality than in other people and they are not exhausted in practical actions. Art means to be delivered from those. When an element takes a definitive shape, it is such a moment of freedom which only the mystic saint experiences in ie ecstasy, when freed from Existence, he returns back to the Being. But such moments of being out of time, of eternity are temporary even for the mystic saint - and this is the biggest paradox for them. As the mystics say: as long as man is living in Time, he cannot contemplate Eternity too long because he has to return to Time. The ready shapes are similar for the artist: they are final and mean Eternity, and still, it is not possible to stay with them because man has to return to Time." The works of the exhibition Attachment in front of us dwell in the twinkling of past and present, of Time and Eternity dissolving in timelessness: remembering and reminding. Tibor Wehner 16