Year by year, the display gave an overview of those directions, approaches and forms of expression that were adopted by freshly graduated students of visual arts. What the diploma pieces together highlighted was not a shared style, but a peculiar sensitivity that was shared by students of the same year. In 2004, the Hungarian Academy of Art was the only participating institution, while the years to follow saw more and more foreign academies join the initiative (from Austria, the Czech Republic, France, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.) The Faculty of Art at Pécs University was first represented in 2006. In an attempt to promote Hungarian contemporary art abroad, the FRESH Europe show was also presented in Berlin in 2005, in Brussels in 2006, and in Vienna in 2007.
Re:trospective and irre:gular, this year’s FRESH re:flects on the first four years of the series, and presents, by way of questions and answers, a selection of previously featured Hungarian artists. Their most recent works help visitors appraise their development since graduation, the creative directions they have taken since their diploma pieces. The first floor is dedicated to the four KOGART Prize winners, while the other two storeys present about thirty Hungarian artists, providing a cross-section view of the Fresh exhibition series, their own oeuvres, and recent trends in Hungarian contemporary art.
Relying on expert and popular opinion, the Kovács Gábor Art Foundation will award the KOGART Prize in 2008 as well, to a featured artist who has not been granted the distinction before.