We have the pleasure to invite You to the Hungarian Cultural Institute on the 19th october 2005 at 19h, for the opening of the photo exhibition of Ata Kandó "Borderlines" Fragments about the 20th century... The exhibition is opened by Ad van Denderen Open to the public: 19. October - 21. November 2005. ON THE OPENING, A MEETING OF TWO HUNGARIANS AFTER 50 YEARS: A CONVERSATION WITH THE PHOTOGRAPHER, ATA KANDó (LIVING IN THE NETHERLANDS) AND THE HISTORIAN, FERENC FEJTÕ (LIVING IN FRANCE).
"Borderlines" · Opening speech by Ad van Denderen

Ten days ago my phone rang. Ata on the telephone. 'Ad, where are you on the nineteenth of October? I have an exibition in Brussels, someone has to do the official opening. Ali my old friends have died, could you please do it?
I had booked a flight to Cyprus for the day before. I was supposed to continue my work on my new project: Edges of the Mediterranean'. But many people here know, for Ata you change your plans!

Forty two years ago I got to know Ata at the School for Graphic Design in Utrecht. She was our photography teacher. A delicate woman of the world, who tought me perfection. We spent so many afternoons in the dark room, and at the end of such an intense day I had a pile of prints of the same negative. I did not see the difference, but she did. Ata explained to me about the black that was not black enough or the white that was too grey. She tought me how to look.

Ata's important body of photographical work has many sides to it. Her fashion photography from her time in Paris and Amsterdam. Her 'Dream in the Woods' from 1957, The Indians in South America and of course Ali the important pictures she took of the Hungarian refugees in 1956, together with Violet Cornelis.
I can see a straight line in her photography, the photo's are warm, clear and accessible. I noticed it again when she gave me the re- issue, in Hungarian, of her book about the Hungarian refugees. You can see this book has been made by a woman and a mother and may-be also by a refugee who recognises the situation of displaced persons.
Thanks to photography Ata and Violet gave these refugees a face and a place in world history. We owe it to them that we shall never forget this tragedy.
Dream in the wood was a photographic fairy-tale for Ata. It became a very poetic story. But society in the 50’s could not take so much pureness. People said it was a disgrace, but in my opinion such outcries said more about the viewer / onlooker than about the photographer.

For me, and i think to many more people Ata is a very special lady. She is not only elegant, but also very powerful.
I would like to tell you a few anecdotes.
After I graduated from the School for Graphic Design I went on a journey around the world. When I came home with a bag full of filmrolls, I got my first exhibition. I selected the photographs with Ata. The only problem was: I did not know where I could print them as I did not have a dark room.
Ata stepped in and arranged that we could use the dark room of the college where she still taught, during a whole weekend. We worked for 48 hours non stop. The only intervals were for one of Ata's much loved Hungarian bottles. Never more than one, because we knew we were there to work. Ata opened the exhibition, for which I am still grateful.

You will understand that I am standing here with a feeling of deja vu. It is good, we are back at the beginning.

I remember an event in 2001. I had spend weeks on the beach of Punta Paloma in Spain, hoping to photograph the immigrants from Maroc, they came in little unstable boats during the nights, but I never knew when and where exactly. At one o' clock in the morning my mobile rang. Ata. Addddd, as she always says, I am walking in Amsterdam with a plastic bag in my hand and I am homeless. I have just flown in from the States. I cannot spend the night at Eva's, do you know a place for me to stay? Eva Besnyo, where Ata always stayed when she was in Holland, did not live in Amsterdam anymore. I could not help her in the cold night at the Spanish beach. But it was wonderful to see that many people in Holland, a lot of them photographers, took care of Ata in the following weeks. And in no time she settled down.

Ata I think you have always lived in two worlds. The global one and the Hungarian one.

In the winter of 1990 the two of us travelled to Hungary. I bought a second hand car. I could start the engine on the way to Hungary, but when we had arrived in Budapest, the engine failed time after time. My solution was to park the car on a hill, where you got in and there we went. I could not possibly ask a woman, in every inch a lady and more than 80 years old, to push the car in the streets covered with snow!
One of the things that struck me while visiting your friends in Budapest was the warmth between you and them. You behaved as if you had spent your whole life there. It did not matter how long you had not seen them, as soon as you were there, you were part of their life. I am sure your smooth adaptation to different situations is one of your very strong characteristics.

Ata, maybe I did not say enough about your photography, but you and I both know that photos are images. And images you have to feel. There is hardly anybody who is as good and subtle with light as you are. And everybody can see that here at this exhibition

Ata, thank you for the photographs you have given us. They are human images, sometimes of a tough society, no sledgehammer blows, because too many sledgehammer blows numbs. I am very glad that your photos have found there place in history and I am happy that you now get the recognition you deserved for a long time.

Ata you are a fantastic photographer and a beautiful human being.

Ad van Denderen

photo: Róbert Kassay