Their knowledge, experience, and creations clearly, clearly, honestly and faithfully show what it means to be Hungarian today.

This year, eight people won the National Artist Award, Hungary's most prestigious art award, which was presented on Tuesday in Budapest, at the headquarters of the Hungarian Academy of Arts (MMA), in Pesti Vigado.

The National Artist Award Committee in 2024 for folk singer András Berecz, storyteller, architect Attila Ferenczfy-Kovács, interior designer, visual designer, cinematographer János Kende, architect Antal Lázár, interior designer Gábor Mezei, furniture designer, poet Tamás Menyhért, writer, translator, writer Ferenc Temesi and Teodóra Uhrik awarded the award to dance artist and dance teacher.

"You, the artists of our respected nation, represent in the highest quality what we Hungarians have been building day by day for many, many centuries. Our culture, art, patriotism, i.e. the Hungarian national idea"

- said the Minister of Culture and Innovation Balázs Hankó at the award ceremony, emphasizing that the two words, nation and art, do not exist without each other, they mutually presuppose each other.

The title of Artist of the Nation is awarded to the most outstanding Hungarian creators of literature, theater, visual arts, music, applied arts, architecture, cinematography, folk art, dance, photography and visual arts, and their board encompasses the entire Hungarian cultural life - he reminded , adding: their knowledge, experience, and creations clearly, clearly, honestly and faithfully show what it means to be Hungarian today.

"Your knowledge is the brightest capital of the Hungarians' future".

Attila Turi, the president of the MMA, recalled the anniversary of the award ceremony in his speech, as he said that it was ten years after its foundation that the first awardees received the award on November 5, the public body's birthday.

He noted that recognizing excellence in the present tense is not as easy as talking about it in the past tense.

"But our job is to show the nation who their role models are in time," he said.

Speaking about the achievements so far and the artists recognized with the award in the last ten years, he emphasized: we must continue to protect and support our intellectual and spiritual currency, Hungarian culture, and its artists, who provide the spiritual nourishment of a nation and create communities.

He emphasized: the nation's artists are the bearers of culture in a world where the real and virtual, the real and pseudo worlds seem to be fatally mixed due to the loss of proportion.

"It is important that a clear, living example shows that God-given talent and the work required to hone it are real," he said.

At the initiative of the MMA, the National Assembly established the National Artist Award, which is the most prestigious domestic art award, in order to personally appreciate recognized representatives of the Hungarian artistic life and ensure their dignified living conditions.

There can be no more than 70 artists of the nation at any one time.

The Chairman of the National Artist Award Committee is architect Attila Turi, MMA , member painter János Aknay, dramatist Károly Eperjes, writer Margit Ács, dramatist Péter Blaskó, architect István Ferencz, designer, film director Lajos Koltai, cinematographer, visual artist Zsuzsa Péreli, textile artist, Sapszon Karnagy Ferenc, Ferenc Sebő, performer, folk music researcher and Zoltán Zsuráfszky, dancer and choreographer.

MTI

Front page image: The Minister of Culture and Innovation gives a speech on the occasion of the presentation of the National Art Awards at the ceremony held in the Vigadó Hall in Pest on November 5, 2024. Eight people won the award this year.
MTI/Zoltán Kocsis