19/01/2005

The photos which I printed today look like photos which have been lying around in some drawer for twenty years. Photos of buildings, streets, images no older than one hour. A city from the present, bearing the colours of the past.
It seems nostalgic, almost romantic. Every picture seems to be worthwhile. But it is not by definition the quality of the image itself, but the presence of history, our longing for travelling back in time, which seduces the eye.

Something similar happened in the local galery, later on this day. We were caught by the wonderful sound and rhythm of the speeches in both the Slovak and the Hungarian language and the charming clumsiness of two women playing the piano. The deputy mayor, on the other hand, could only just keep himself from yawning. Seeing this I realised that in Holland I would probably be yawning too.

The opening followed the same rules all art openings do. At first everybody has to listen to long speeches, after this everybody glances quickly at the artworks and finally people gather around the bar (in this case table) to drink and eat and talk about trivial things without taking any further notice of the artworks.