Imre Benkő: City Park. Budapest, 1969–2023

This determination becomes manifest in very different series, like the one made in Ózd or the one whose subject is the Sziget Festival. However, all his pictures communicate their message in the same visual language, and you can immediately recognize Benkő’s signature use of perspective or choice of angle of view, both which stem from his sensitive method, of which humour is a component. Another salient feature of his approach is what is called humanist photography, which dates back to André Kertész and which later became the guiding principle in particular in the work of French photographers.

The photographer, who turns 80 this year, presents a small slice of Budapest’s 150 years with 50 of the photographs he took in City Park. Almost every year since 1969, when he began the series, he added a picture. Imre Benkő feels at home in situations where he can be an unobserved observer of the life of the man in the street, and his approach to his subjects is marked by an unparalleled professional humility and sensitivity that allows the ordinary people in his pictures to become heroes. In a remarkable first, this exhibition also presents a few colour shots by the artist. These photographs are rare pieces of Hungarian contemporary photographic history, and this year they are also linked to the 150 years of Budapest.

‘As a photographer, I am interested in the visual interpretation of the real world, in a distinctive documentary representation of people and their environment. I study the stages of human life, I formulate images and photographic essays of my experiences filtered through reality, make subjective portraits of the times.’