The Hungarian Month of Photography, organized by the Association of Hungarian Photographers, will again offer a diverse programme. The country’s most popular photography festival was joined by 35 exhibitions, held at both smaller galleries and big-name institutions. During the festival, Mai Manó House presents the art of Margaret Watkins, the Hungarian Museum of Photography holds an exhibition of Zsolt Olaf Szamódy, the Hungarian National Museum hosts the World Press Photo show and a display of the Szebeni Workshop, the Hungarian Natural History Museum shows the best Hungarian nature photography, the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Centre features an exhibition dedicated to Count Zsigmond Széchenyi, and the Szabó Ervin Metropolitan Library introduces the students of the Grammar School for Fine and Applied Arts. Along with the Art Market Budapest and more than twenty Budapest galleries, there will be plenty of events in the country as well, with Salföld, Pécs, Cegléd, Kecskemét and Debrecen all hosting exhibitions of the Hungarian Month of Photography.

As it has become a custom, Mai Manó House holds again the main even of the Hungarian Month of Photography 2021. The exhibition Black Light features the works of Margaret Watkins (1884–1969), a worthy successor to the Weegee, Nobuyoshi Araki and Robert Doisneau oeuvre exhibitions of the previous Hungarian Months of Photography, which were organized by Mai Manó House and the Association of Hungarian Photographers. The Canadian photographer is remembered as someone who breathed a new life into advertising photography. She lived a life of rebellion, rejecting traditions. She built a successful career at a time when women stayed at home, whereas she herself never married. Eroticism and feminism are recurring themes in Watkins’ art and writings.

We are particularly pleased to welcome a new venue at the Hungarian Month of Photography 2021, Foton Gallery. When it opened in June, the joint gallery of the Association of Hungarian Photographers and the Studio of Young Photographers filled a long-felt need, because the Association, which was founded in 1956, had never had a gallery of its own, a place where its members could exhibit. Foton Gallery presents three exhibitions during the festival.

Péter Baki
festival director

‍