The Ádám Szabó Class Exhibition Opens Under the Title “Ízé”
The Ádám Szabó Class Exhibition Opens Under the Title “Ízé”
The class of Ádám Szabó will open an exhibition titled “Ízé” at the MAMŰ Gallery.
OPENING: 24 April 2026, 6pm
OPENING BY: ISTVÁN László költő / poet
ON VIEW: until 15 May 2026, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday from 3pm to 6pm
ADDRESS: MAMÜ Gallery, H-1071 Budapest, Damjanich u. 39. (entrance from Murányi street)
SUPPORTED BY:
National Cultural Fund (Hungary), Hungarian Academy of Arts, Hungarian University of Fine Arts
EXHIBITING ARTISTS:
BÁRDI Dominik | BURJÁN Vanda | CSÉFFAI Györgyi | DEÁK Anna | FARKAS Lukrécia | FODOR Bíborka | KIS-DELI Zsombor | KISS Zoltán | KOCSIS Barbara | LADÁNYI András | MEGYERI Barbara | SARFENSTEIN Ditta | SIPOS Fruzsina | SIPOS Lilla Judit | SZABÓ Réka | TATÁR-KISS Virág | ZSANDÁR Zoé |
HAMLET
The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body. The king is a thing—
GUILDENSTERN
A thing, my lord?
HAMLET
Of nothing.
William Shakespeare: Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 2. Translated by János Arany
(“izé” — an untranslatable Hungarian word meaning “thing,” “something,” or anything unsaid — extends Shakespeare’s “thing / nothing” wordplay into a different linguistic and cultural register.)
The word izé is a real delicacy—indeed, a true Hungarian specialty. No other language has such a universal word that, at the same time, has no meaning on its own. It can be used as a filler word, but even more often as a substitute when something doesn’t come to mind or when we prefer not to say it. As a substitute, however, its meaning is very precise: it can stand for anything, yet in a given context it always refers to something specific—like a joker in a deck of cards. It can function as a noun, an adjective, or a verb; it can be inflected and combined with verbal prefixes.
In 2001, Tamás Körösényi organized his class exhibition at the Tóparti Gimnázium in Székesfehérvár under the title Izé. Twenty-five years later, it might be worth reconsidering or developing the idea further.
