Imre Szabó
Gucha: Ode of joy or hugging life
Imre Szabó, in the concept, opens a kaleidoscope of photographs showing the "Brass Festival" in ancient years. He is recording moments of joy and human happiness.
Guča's honesty speaks faithfully about an unmatched experience. About the document, to the extent authentic, where every recorded segment is breathing true life. These photographs are above all emotional shots, and it seems like the artist was taking a snapshot for his personal, intimate diary. He is photographing everything he observes and experiences in a special and dedicated manner. Also, this deep sincerity shines with artistic zeal. The photos show an unadulterated Guča. The document is about our man, uninhibited, fierce gestures and naked emotions. There is no angle or detail that is conceived in the photo, with a dosage of combination or of focusing on the observer's exaltation. On the artificial causing of excitement ... The sensitivity of the artistic eye and absolute inspiration, the perfect relationship and the management of the lens, talks about the strength and size of the document. About the extraordinary fascination of a photo that records life.
By photographing Guča, Imre Szabó, intuitively stops the continuum of time. And we feel that, by the energy of his photographs turning that he transposed chosen moments into an eternal and unfading event. It could be interpreted - in an extraordinary mission, he is following his precise view that leads him to the deepest magic of his art.
On the photos from Guča we see life in its almost original image - both beautiful and brutal. Tents falling on patrons, bottles and beer barrels, lambs rotating on a spit, makeshift tables. It seems that we smell the fair cooking, the smell of onions and hot bread ...
All these bodies are on the move, in a temperamental dance, mimics and excited faces, the flash of pupils, the gaping mouths that do not speak, because the throaty sounds are joy and song. Young girls, dancing passionately on tables, barefoot and with ecstatic bodies. Their song in the darkness of the night, their joy, their chaste and wild screams and make the beauty of boiling Guča ... The shine of the trumpets, like huge golden cups, hundreds of different instruments scattered in the meadow, musicians mixed with patrons, everything is poured into a hot swirl. In the ode of joy, in the glow of life, in music and songs. Into the sound.
Imre Szabó preserved the document when our man, that fiery Balkan man, is partying in his own individual way. This is the image of the original Guča - this improvised world that is real, exotic and frantic. It is full of glowing passion. Honest. Reveling. It speaks of happiness. About endless happiness.
These are photographs where life is transformed in memories. An where memories are transformed into art. Imre Szabó in the cycle "Guča, Ten Years After" speaks about hugging life.
Text: Vera Blagojević Ugrinov