Something happened in the 1970s: photographers were given exhibition opportunities one after another at the Műcsarnok, including Tamás Féner, Péter Korniss, Róbert Horling, Irén Ács, Edit Molnár, and Károly Hemző. With our exhibition, we are evoking Hemző’s legendary exhibition *My Encounters*, which opened exactly fifty years ago in 1976, and placing it in dialogue with the visual perspectives of young 21st-century artists—the winners and finalists of the award named after Károly Hemző.
Károly Hemző evolved from a legendary sports photographer into a legendary photojournalist and editor. He then gained popularity alongside his partner and creative collaborator, Lajos Mari, through a legendary book series—the groundbreaking cookbooks published in millions of copies that established a new school of thought.
We take a look at the bold, innovative creative and presentation strategies of the 1976 exhibition. We research, reconstruct, and discover. But we also highlight other segments of his rich and varied body of work, primarily by presenting the author’s vintage photographs, most of which he enlarged by hand.
Although Hemző never taught photography anywhere, he still had an impact on subsequent generations. Through the works of his former colleague and friend, András Bánkuti, and Róbert László Bácsi—representing the generation that followed Bánkuti—as well as their work on the Hemző Prize curatorial board, they bridge the 1970s with the world of today’s youth, the recipients of the Hemző Prize.
The winners of the Károly Hemző Award, established in 2013—András Hajdú D., Simon Móricz-Sabján, Balázs Mohai, Zsófia Pályi, István Bielik, Sándor Csudai, László Végh, Márton Mónus, Judit Ruprech, Noémi Napsugár Melegh, Bálint Szajki, and András Zoltai—and the works of the finalists attest to the fact that they represent the defining generation of 21st-century Hungarian photography.