Return to Budapest
Gabor Szilasi
March 11 to April 25, 1999
| Gabor Szilasi, one of Canada's pre-eminent photographers, began his
career in his native Hungary in the years leading up to the Hungarian Revolution
of 1956, and, in this exhibition of previously unexhibited work, he returns
to his roots. Taken over the course of 15 years from1980 (Szilasi's first
visit to Budapest after 24 years), these luminous photographs highlight
the artist's relationship with certain beloved individuals, now gone, and
the city of his birth. "I like a lot of information in pictures," Szilasi
says. The portraits in this exhibit demonstrate his intuitive ability to
capture character through organic context. Many of his subjects are surrounded
by paintings and photographs, a subtle comment by the artist on his métier.
For the architectural views of Budapest, "I just walk around and find
my subjects," Szilasi explains. Both in scenes caught by the camera
in tucked-away courtyards and in the more explicit cityscapes, the viewer
experiences a sense of surprised discovery. Szilasi captures a fascinating
dichotomy between the nineteenth-century courtliness of Budapest and the
urban grit of the late twentieth century. — Elaine Kalman Naves |
| Biography Born in Budapest, Hungary in 1928, Gabor Szilasi has been living in Montreal since 1959. Working as a photographer with the Office du film du Québec, he became intimately familiar with the regions of the Province. In the documentary mode of photographing people within their own environment, he used a 35mm Leica as well as the more traditional 4x5 inch view camera. In 1980 Gabor became Professor of Photography in the Faculty of Fine Arts at Concordia University, continuing to teach there until his retirement in 1995. He was Visiting Professor at Cracow Academy of Fine Arts in Poland in 1990 as well as at Stanford University in California in 1991, 1993 and 1995. In 1980 he began a series of return visits to his native city of Budapest to renew friendships and photograph familiar people and places. Gabor has received both Quebec and Canada Council grants enabling him to continue his photographic documentation of rural Quebec and Montreal. These striking photographs have been presented in solo and group exhibitions in Canada, France, Hungary, Italy and Poland. Museums that include Mr. Szilasi’s photographs in their collections are: the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Musée d’art contemporain and McCord Museum of Montreal, Musée du Québec, the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, the Stedelijik Museum in Amsterdam as well as the Fotografiska Museet in Stockholm. More about Gabor Szilasi at |
