fotóművészet

SUMMARY 2002/3-4


László Haris had begun his career as an amateur photographer; later he worked for newspapers; in the eighties he took part in the development of an animation film process "photo-animation"; and in the recent past he has been working as the programme-maker of TV programs on photography titled Árnyékfogó. From the late sixties on he oriented himself deliberately to photographing as an art equal to visual arts. He was member of different groups of fine arts such as Szürenon, IPARTERV and No 1, and he took part in organising the in the meantime banned Balatonboglári Kápolnatárlatok (Chapel art-exhibitions in Balatonboglár). Sándor Bacskai made an interview with László Haris - I feel at home in visual arts .

Film historian Sándor Féjja reports on Magda B. Müller's photo exhibition - Disturbed time - a selection of her photos from the last thirteen years (1989 to 2002). "Each picture of "Disturbed time" is living simultaneously in its future, sub-sequence and presence - i.e. in its moment and in its progression. This kind of time-relatedness of the photograph, of the 'time stopped', cannot be realised but through a contact with the spectators. In reality it is the 'complementing' psychic action of the spectator's personality or more specifically of the Ego. First of all this feature of the photographs makes those worthy for it, lasting," - Sándor Féjja concludes.

As part of a series of events organised by the Hungarian Patent Office on the Day of Intellectual Property last April for the second time, photographer students of the Hungarian University of Applied Arts made the portraits of contemporary writers. Dr Miklós Bendzsel president of the Hungarian Patent Office comments about the Szó-Kép exhibition.

Irén Pilaszanovich comments about the exhibition of László Hegedűs 2, in Székesfehérvár: "László Hegedűs 2 feels the dilemma as his own, namely what kind of relationship exists between the pictorial symbol and the spoken language, what relations the two postulate or make possible. Is it necessary to make the symbols and meanings always to correspond, or to suppose them to be reciprocal - this is the question to which Hegedűs has been trying for years to find an answer."

Gábor Pfisztner interviewed László Tasnádi functional photographer. Tasnádi a qualified graphic designer and typographer, sometimes changes the camera over to computer and 3D programmes. He is capable of creating things and situations which cannot be created in reality. His pictures, he says, are variable/changeable decorative virtual photo-illusions. Title of the interview is Perfect illusion of the 3D space.

Emese Miskolczi presents herself in an interview by Sándor Bacskai in the Nikon Gallery. The young photo artist newly graduated from the University of Applied Arts, has for long made her hidden self-portraits, and those photos served as basis for her theses at the University. "The situation could be compared to looking into the mirror. Each time you must rediscover your individuality, the uniqueness of your existence. This discovery is both stunning and startling at the same time. It is inconceivable to be a stranger, it is a schizophrenic experience to identify, to assimilate yourself to the reality", she says.

Gábor Pfisztner visited Helmut Newton's exhibition - Sex and Landscapes - in the Ludwig Museum. It was not an ordinary interview he made with the Berlin born eighty-two years old Newton, one of the Old Masters, the reformer of fashion photographing. "You cannot get close to him, neither physically to the extend of a talk, nor mentally through questions. He is non-committal to any open direct question. He is playing with you" - notes Pfisztner, adding "Whereas he is not subject to inquiry, his pictures definitely are", and this is what Pfisztner managed to do.

Zoltán Fejér toured Europe. His stops in a word: "An Ort und Stelle" is the title of the exhibition of Christine de Grancy sociophotographer Pakistan, in the Westlich in Vienna; a show of galleries dealing with photographs from the 19th and 20th centuries; Art 33, Basel Switzerland; an exhibition of Gustav Le Gray's 250 pictures in the Bibliothéque National in Paris.

"Speed and Spirit" was the title of an exhibition of Zoltán Glass' photos in a Mercedes-Benz showroom in Budapest. Glass (1902-1981) was born in Budapest, he lived in Berlin and London, and died in Roquebrune, France. His photos from the thirties immortalise the everyday and the highlights of the German contemporary motor industry and motor racing.

"In the mid-eighties I taught literature, and we often used a book - '40 arc - 40 irás' ('40 faces - 40 writings'). It was very useful for the children to be able to see poets, writers, artists known to them by their works, in their own milieu, in their home surrounded by their favourite things, books. At that time I would not have thought that fifteen years later I would get a chance to meet the photographer who had made those wonderful interior-portraits" - Marianna Kiscsatári introduces with this comment the interview with Zsuzsa G Fábri photo artist.

Photo artist Paulius Normantas who lives in Nyíregyháza, visited and worked in Tibet for the sixth time: "Love, normally shown to people living in servitude and under oppression, spread among us like a language we used to address each other on the mountain paths or on the heavy yet weightless lanes in the clouds; on the lane where it seemed as if God's hands were very close to us!" Normantas titled his article 'Ode to the Tibetans'.

Magdolna Kolta makes some biased comments on PhotoEspagna 2002. This year the Madrid photo month has been given the name Femeninos: the great majority of the exhibitions dealt with women's photography, women's identity and women's portrayal. Apart from the official festival program parading quite a few "big names", there has been an off-festival, and visitors could see a high-standard, complex series of events.

Valéria Vanília Majoros visited the Munkácsi Márton show in the Ethnographic Museum. Pictures from his early period made in Hungary, were borrowed from Hungarian collectors, the Hungarian Photographic Museum and the Historical Photographs Collection of the Hungarian National Museum. "The visitor with great expec-tations would be distressed at first sight by the meagreness of the exhibition. But seeing the portraits of de Katherine, Marion and Margaret Hepburn, as well as pictures like "Rain in Sicily" or "Cheese Market in Holland", the distress may cease. But you could also visit this exhibition so that you see its richness; our richness. Where on earth do we have so many André Kertész, Brassai or Robert Capa?"

Panorama was the subject of the competition of the 13th Esztergom Photo Biennial 2002. Péter Baki's short technical history helps understand the essence of panorama photographing, hoping that the competition works would reinterpret our ideas of the panoramic picture.

In a biography by Péter Baki, "The legacy of an Eastern European photo artist", one can learn more about Tibor Honty (1907-1968). Honty, also a talented potter, spent the greater part of his life in Prague. His pictures are collected in America, albums with his pictures have been published in the Czech Republic, and the Hungarian Photographic Museum has organised a retrospective exhibition.