Dear Guests,

Personally, I've been waiting a long time for this moment. How long? Months perhaps? Maybe even years? The important thing is that finally the time which we call here and now has arrived. Many of you have come together and are excitedly awaiting the opening of Tamás Waliczky's exhibition which we could also call a presentation or if I wanted a more eloquent word, propagation. Well, it is at this time or interlude that I would like to delay the presentation just for a moment.

Since I have your attention I would like to take the opportunity to mention a few little things on the occasion of Tamás Waliczky's exhibition.

The first small thing would be Buster Keaton. There are many legends about the silent film actor and director. One of these is how Keaton, when he was very young, was once playing in the family garden. His parents had left little Buster alone for a short time but when they were but a few miles from home they saw a tornado heading right in the direction of their house. Of course, they thought the worst would happen because they knew none of the neighbors would think that there was a little boy just a few yards away from them playing in the sand, and no one would run to save him.

The next little thing is the Waliczky gaze. Let's take an example. No, I changed my mind, let's not. It can't be explained anyway. Generally, someone's gaze is not really a verbal form anyway but rather a visual form.

Tamás Waliczky's works have always brought to mind his gaze. It is that particular subjective, slightly laconic but enquiring look. It is how a little peasant boy would wonderingly gaze at a ballpoint pen, a pen which he would never have to dip into an inkwell again. It is how an adolescent would pick up a Leica 8mm. camera, look into it and take it apart. Of course he would do it carefully so as not to damage any of its springs or insides although he knows full well that the camera has scrunched up and ruined the film inside. Or for example the time when an adult looks in amazement at a Commodore 64 computer or a bargain-priced Atari. It is often said of such a look that it belongs to someone who is stubborn and immovable but who also has a sense of humor and fun. He is Homo Ludens, one who can't be knocked off balance. A person who is able to shift in progress and can give up his greatest treasures - paintbrush, pencils, paints - and dares to substitute them all with a mouse. He is a person who obsessively chases his idée fix, in a world that has changed drastically around him. Like when a tornado has changed everything while a few toys remain unscathed. The Guttenberg Galaxy has been replaced by something else, something unnamable.

This particular gaze which cannot be explained, possessed, or inherited is there in all of Waliczky's finished and yet to be created works. Perhaps not only in the works but in the intervals between work? Á� propos? Could there possibly be a moment when a creative man isn't working? Take for example, on vacation; two consecutive weeks for the sake of vacation with no ulterior motives of making films and such. Just being, doing nothing. In regards to Waliczky this question cannot be interpreted. His private life and work are so interconnected that no one can figure out where one stops and the other begins. His private life is defined by his work and the subject of his work is his private life. In the Waliczky family everyone is a part and parcel of the creative process. Anna, Annamária, and Tamás sit around the table, dance, or wander around blindfolded,. And for years and decades they have done it in a way that doesn't feel heavy, self-contained, or phony. Of course we didn't feel it, since the gaze that focuses, in this case, on the family, is the same gaze. You know, that special gaze; that subjective and curious look. The look that couldn't care less about the particular genre it's observing whether it be paintings, animated films, CD-ROM or internet animation.

Tamás Waliczky and his family have been wandering the earth in time and space for quite a while; sometimes with blindfolded eyes and sometimes without. We have explored with them the vast "Forest," run the never ending road, tried out the rocking chair, relaxed in the "Garden," searched for the pictures hidden inside the "Pictures," focused on the people we love, and last but not least, we have been out on the sea where we met the goldfish. Yes, the miracle has happened: Tamás Waliczky's works can finally be seen here in Hungary too, right here at C3. We welcome you all.

György Pálos

Budapest, December 4, 2002



Translated by Zsuzsa Nagy