Modern Etnikum II. (Árkád Galéria, Budapest, 1992)

We live in a world turning toward standardization. In the sign of rationality we build houses of the same shape, we spend our time among furnitures if the same type, which were manufactured In big factories, and we wear factory-tailored clothes. We often call and chide this way of life amerlcanlzatlon, though It is not so simple. It Is the requirement of our age to organize the division of goods, with more or less success, with such rationality. By means of this possibility objects can be purchased and It Is easier for everybody toget them. It Is d positive fact that massproductlon Is cheaper than craftsmanship. Urban people, watching folk art films on television (In his central-heated flat, beside electric light), are lost in reveries of good old days when everything was more accurate, more organized and more healthy. However, they will not Imitate that because In that case It would quickly come to light that the old popular way of life is unadapted for the man of today. Well, should we acquiesce In the uniform blue jeans, uniform joggings, uniform flats and McDonald's hamburger? Not at all. We can accept everything what makes our life more comfortable in the right place, the right age and occasslon. We should search for the possibility of difference, the things for what foreigners visit Hungary, Instead of other countries. One of our magnificent chances to create difference is the very folk art and historical costume. In Its rich storehouse the talented and skilled designers can find newer and newer ideas to apply the particular shapes, cuttings and decorations. The most Important Is that traditional style cannot be excluding or conservative, It may not serve the outer representation of a shabby thinking, but versa: Its task is to serve the taste of people living at the end of 20th century In a renewed and transformed way, but peculiarily, In Europe and as a European Hungarian trend in order to re-establish a strikingly marked, attractive and captivating Hungarian fashion, not instead of Joggings and blue jeans, but besides them. How to make this kind of new Hungarian fashion desirable for the mass? How to force them to Imitate this fashion? This is the purpose of the artists at the second "Modern Ethnic Unit” exhibition. Katalin Földi-Dózsa art-historian

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