SUMMARY 1997/1-2

Last year the Association of Hungarian Photoartists celebrated its 40th anniversary. The editors of Fotóművészet will be publishing documents about the history of the Association in three subsequent issues. This first part gives an account of the events leading up to founding the Association, the minutes of the founders meeting, as well as the biographies of four meanwhile deceased chairmen, by Károly Kincses. The documents were compiled by Ferenc Markovics.

The 6th “Month of Photography” was held last autumn in Bratislava, this year 30 exhibitions and a twoday seminar will be contributing to the success of that series of events. 1997 has provided more opportunities than ever before to the artists because the First Group of Artists could put on show their works on three exhibitions in the framework of the probably largest photographic show in Central Europe, thanks to the Gromek Gallery and András Bozsó. Judit Csáder organizer and Gergely Rónai comanager of the Gromek Gallery are talking about their experiences in the interview.

“Lay a baby onto a sensitive paper, expose it and revive an ancient ritual from the picture” writes Eszter Götz of the photos of Ágnes Eperjesi. The babies are shining from the dark background like immortal players of life. The photos of the series “Newborn babies” are “shots from a celestial viewpoint”.

György Szegő has two reviews: one is “A város teste” (The body of the town) about the Budapest Book of Tamás Révész: the album is more or less a memento. Tamás Révész placed György Klösz‘s 100 years old photos above the pictures of today‘s Budapest so that the two can be compared. Budapest is still ravishing...

In his book review, Péter Tímár gives an assessment of the “architectural” photographs of Tamás G. Fejér participating in a competition “Staircase, doorway, public square” of the Magyar Építôm?vészet (Hungarian Architectural Art).

Former fashion model Sarah Moon now resident in Paris, is one of the few femal fashion photographer. “Apparently, I am too shy”, she says, “I take photographs to get away from reality rather than to immortalize something.” Katalin Szabolcs interviewed the photoartist, whose photographs were exhibited in the Polaroid Gallery.

The apropos of the author‘s other paper was an exhibition – “Picture path between East and West” – of 16 Japanese contemporary artists, including Yasumasa Morimura, Hiromi Tsuchida, in the Vienna Applied Arts Museum.

In his other essay – Kunstlicht – Szegő shares his personal experience of an exhibition of the Zürich Kunsthaus in the Art Gallery in Krems with the Readers on which about 500 photos of the best of photo artists were on show.

In his essay Béla Albertini makes comments on the recent photo albums nostalgical of the old good days of the AustroHungarian Monarchy. He picks out two of those albums published in growing number since 1989: “Once upon a time there was a Hungary” and “Imperial Vienna, Royal Budapest – Photographs on the turn of the century” published in the framework of a Hungarian–Austria cooperation.

Gábor Pfisztner interviewed Tibor Szűcs. In the interview – “Our Grandads‘ bygone world” – the young photographer relates the story of how he explored the photo legacy of the Hommonais – an old photographer family in Makó – totalling 25.000 negative glass plates.

A Spontaneous Historical Portrayal by Béla Albertini deals with the exhibition “A nation of horsemen – Photographs about the relationship between man and horse” in the Dorottya Gallery. While this exhibition is meant to pay tribute to the Hungarian “horse” mythology, it has also done damage to this mythology, the Author writes in the paper.

György Sümegi serves with more detail about the life of Kálmán Brogyányi head of the Slovak Sarló (Sickle) Movement, a group of social photographers. Brogyányi had emigrated from Slovakia; a letter he wrote in Austria before immigrating to the USA, gives an insight into the living and working conditions of that time.

Károly Kincses‘s “Dictionary of Photo Conservation” advises of the way of conserving negatives and photos. Warning. Although Károly Kincses is a photo museologist, this time don‘t take it all in what he is telling you.

Our next article of a series launched to present the students of a training course in photographing history at the Eötvös Lóránd University and the Hungarian National Museum, will be discussing a thesis by Csilla B. Horváth about the photographing activity of Károly Zelezsny.

Etelka L. Baji reports on some daguerrotypes found only recently.

In the first part of his article about the APS, Endre Schwanner gives a short review of technical details about what led up to the new camera and film system, then he elaborates on the technical parameters of the APS, as well as on facilities that help improve and make easier to take and to develop photographs. Based on 300 photographs with the new system, he believes that the advanced photo system meets the expectations and requirements, and he is confident that sooner or later it will be used also by the professionals. He is quite certain that the APS has still got a lot in store, but it is difficult to foretell the tendency of future development.