The aimless urban stroll is linked to the emergence of modern, capitalist cities and to the rise of a social class that lives in affluence and has the time to wander aimlessly through the city for the sheer joy of walking. The exhibition titled Three Points takes this experience as its starting point and highlights how contemporary urban space can become a defining breeding ground for reflections in the visual arts today. The title refers to the differing perspectives of the three exhibiting artists—Bori Om, György Orbán, and Hajnalka Tulisz—while also serving as a means of defining the space and, conceptually, suggesting a continuation of something.
The figure of the urban flâneur first emerged in a reflective form in Baudelaire’s poetry in the 19th century. He interprets this sensitive, contemplative figure as one of the key figures of modern metropolitan life. Later, it was Walter Benjamin who, within scholarly discourse, established the phenomenon of the flâneur on a conceptual level and placed it in a radically new context by interpreting it through the lens of a critique of commodity circulation. The phenomenon is linked to the Industrial Revolution and the accompanying transformation of the urban environment. From a structural perspective, the city has transformed into an environment where, as Benjamin describes it, everything can be bought and consumed, thus turning everyone into a potential consumer.
Although more than 150 years have passed since Baudelaire’s myth of the flâneur, and Walter Benjamin’s writings were published several decades earlier, our relationship with the urban environment and the dynamics at play within it remain a relevant field of inquiry today. In his book *The Philosophy of Walking*, contemporary French philosopher Frédéric Gros explores this question: how and in what kind of environment does the modern person walk? The chapter titled *The Urban Flâneur* focuses specifically on the experience of walking in the urban environment. He distinguishes between the onlooker and the flâneur—while the onlooker moves toward a goal but in a halting manner, stopping in front of every shop window and sight, the figure of the flâneur stands in opposition to this modernist attitude, appearing as a subversive element in the urban environment. He is in no hurry, for he has nowhere to go, and unlike the crowd, he does not consume. In his text, Gros characterizes the flâneur thus: “He himself is quite useless, but not passive. He does nothing, yet he hunts down everything, capturing collisions, encounters, and images on the fly.”
The exhibition titled Three Points presents works by Bori Om, György Orbán, and Hajnalka Tulisz that are in some way connected to urban life. The city serves as the source of inspiration, playground, and provocateur for these works. At the same time, they all reflect on how society uses urban spaces, how it shapes them, and what kind of relationship it builds with them. The works are distillations of observations and personal experiences from walks through the city.
Boglárka Tóth