SUMMARY

“The recent past and present of progressive Hungarian photography” essay by László Beke from the 96/97 Winter issue of the Slovak journal IMAGO is again published in FOTÓMŰVÉSZET.Starting from tendencies in the sixties, through the concept, self-documentation and “found” photo Beke deliberately leaves open the series.The structural background, the social role and assessment of photography and fine arts have been restructured in Hungary. The new generation has no interest in the divide between the two arts, and is markedly oriented to photography – according to the comments of Tibor Szűcs on the exhibition of the Young Photoartists’ Studio.Ferenc Markovics visited two exhibitions in Budapest. On the exhibition “Five continents photography” his guide was István Tóth who gave him inside information on international shows regularly staged by the Ceglédi Foto Club since 1966; then he reports on a chamber exhibition staged by the Magyar Filmfotósok Egyesülete (Association of Hungarian Film Photographers) in an article entitled “Face to face”.Zsuzsa Galgóczy: “On the boundary between different genres – at the meeting s point of different worlds” – report on photo artist László Kunkovács. His figures are the messengers of a life style sinking into oblivion but who will remain “living, moving, breathing witness of history no matter that they failed to catch up with the time”.A report on the achievements of Hungarian media artist training and higher grade training for photographers by showing the reader round the Intermedia Faculty of the Hungarian Academy of Arts and the Visual Communication Faculty of the Hungarian School of Applied Arts. The photos were captioned by teachers Miklós Peternák, Tibor Miltényi and Tibor Zátonyi.In an essay “Ficus Lyrata”, Péter Tímár comments on Demeter Balla: “It is impossible to learn what he knows about photographing. You must be a born photographer to make yourself a master of it. Because e. g. no matter how long you keep watching birds flying, you are still stuck to earth.”Photos of Gábor Kerekes are on show in the Polaroid Gallery. The highly talented photoartist himself comments on the photos – his comments are made not really on the photos but on the adventures he was involved while taking the photos. “How should I list all these coincidences in my receipt-book?”“Earlier I used to photograph my dreams, nowadays I prefer to show what surrounds me. Any of my photos is a mirror image of my life” says Czech photographer Jan Saudek whose photos were exhibited for the first time in 1963 to become a world famous photo-artist by now. László G. Szabó interviewed Jan Saudek.György Szegő journalist of FOTÓMŰVÉSZET who was hosted with others by Georgian Film Director Sergej Paradzhanov in 1985 in Georgia, recalls “suddenly, we were the honored guests of a royal banquet where he was the monarch, the »man«, the »father« in sacred terms”. – Title of the article is “A Cervantes hero from the 20th century”.Miklós Molnár TV cameraman and co-author of popular TV shows, has also experimented with teaching and writing. His one-time teacher György Illés comments on his photos he made in 1957 in Dunavecse and attached to his application to the Film Academy.Béla Albertini’s essay is to commemorate László Roth prominent figure of the movement of social photographers between the two world wars. “Belief and disillusionment” is the title of the essay on the career work and relations of László Roth a zealous leftwinger.“First appearance of photography in the Hungarian press” Zsuzsanna Demeter’s theses, a student of a post-graduate training course organized by the National Museum and the Eötvös Loránd University. She explored the dawn of Hungarian press photography on the basis of “fin de siecle” copies of Vasárnapi Ujság.Etelka L. Baji: Brassai and an auction – Report on Brassai Hungarian born photographer who took up residence in 1924 in Paris and on portraits he made among others of Lajos Tihanyi and Mihály Károlyi, currently in the photo archives of the Hungarian National Museum.József Rák reports on the digital cameras jointly designed by Kodak and Canon. Software from Rochester built in Japanese body offers great opportunities to photographers.