HAMLET: The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body. The king is a thing—
GUILDENSTERN: A thing, my lord?
HAMLET: Of nothing.
William Shakespeare: Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 2. Translated by János Arany
(“izé” — an untranslatable Hungarian word meaning “thing,” “something,” or anything unsaid — extends Shakespeare’s “thing / nothing” wordplay into a different linguistic and cultural register.)
The word izé is a real delicacy—indeed, a true Hungarian specialty. No other language has such a universal word that, at the same time, has no meaning on its own. It can be used as a filler word, but even more often as a substitute when something doesn’t come to mind or when we prefer not to say it. As a substitute, however, its meaning is very precise: it can stand for anything, yet in a given context it always refers to something specific—like a joker in a deck of cards. It can function as a noun, an adjective, or a verb; it can be inflected and combined with verbal prefixes.
In 2001, Tamás Körösényi organized his class exhibition at the Tóparti Gimnázium in Székesfehérvár under the title Izé. Twenty-five years later, it might be worth reconsidering or developing the idea further.
Exhibiting artists: BÁRDI Dominik / BURJÁN Vanda / CSÉFFAI Györgyi / DEÁK Anna / FARKAS Lukrécia / FODOR Bíborka / KIS-DELI Zsombor / KISS Zoltán / KOCSIS Barbara / LADÁNYI András / MEGYERI Barbara / SARFENSTEIN Ditta / SIPOS Fruzsina / SIPOS Lilla Judit / SZABÓ Réka / TATÁR-KISS Virág / ZSANDÁR Zoé