Tamas Dezso
"NOTES FOR AN EPILOGUE"

Exhibition: 31 March 2017 – 30 March 2018
Schlassgaart, Montée du Château

Tamas Dezso paints a summary portrait of contemporary Romania. The country is struggling to shed the shackles of its political past, which has pervaded the country’s tangible and intangible rural heritage. This tenuous situation threatens to bury an entire cultural world. At the same time, it gives the photographs a surrealistic and narrative feel.

A stage curtain reveals a small triangular opening at floor level. Wooden floorboards extend beyond the gap, beyond the boundary drawn by the heavy material, a flowing but opaque partition. They lead the way to a backstage that is abstract and difficult to interpret: "All the world’s a stage." (William Shakespeare)

Sometimes history, like a curtain, divides time into two distinct parts. Most stages survive these ruptures, but with time and distance take on unreal traits. They then emerge as ill-defined entities, reserved for ambiguous purposes. This setting evokes more of a story than a concrete reality. Photography is capable of identifying these subtle ambiguities and, from the appearance of things, provides multiple interpretations. The final construal is up to the observer.

Tamas Dezso’s images are characterised by their pictorial style. Their power of expression is far from unequivocal. The photographer targets the sober documentation of a contemporary and rural everyday life that is only slowly shedding its historical and political legacy. He punctuates the landscape with excerpts of individual destinies. While these stories are not the easiest to tell in all their depth, the isolated moment, captured by the camera, depicts a scene that is rich in narrative content: the shift as a result of newly formed associations produces astonishing effects, with these images reminiscent of a fairy-tale world.

www.tamas-dezso.com