Budapest

Hungarian photographers have long haunted and revealed Paris through their lenses, but I know of no precedent for an established French photographer immersing himself in Budapest with such intensity and perception. This by itself might be interesting enough but when it’s matched by the sensitivity and insight that Bruno Bourel’s every single captured moment and every exposure contains and radiates, it is art. His feel for light, his curiosity, his quirky and original eye are compelling, and there is an idiosyncratic lightness to his prowlings about Budapest, the perceptions he manages to steal and make his own. After that he truly only needs plenty of black and white to develop this his own city, so that afterwards any native-born can also find afresh and accept Budapest as his own. It stands very close to the one that is mine. (Lajos Parti Nagy)