SUMMARY 1999/34

Sándor Bacskai interviews Imre Benkő who although growing up in the heart of the woods, keeps photographing the streets of Budapest. He has photographed circus and ballet performances, workers’ hostel, concerts and sporting events, and has been unable to get away from the very specific atmosphere of Ózd. For long he has been considered to be the most hard-working and energetic Hungarian press photographer; photographing has become his lifestyle. He takes interest in documentary portrayal of man in a very peculiar way.

Irén Ács one-time laboratory assistant with the Székely Studio and the famous HAFA company, had no intention of becoming photographer, political circumstances made her to choose that profession. However, when in the fifties she started working as press photographer for the magazines Néphadsereg and Ország-Világ, she felt as if she owned the whole world; she wanted to get to know everything, she asserts in the interview.

In Degrees of stillness, Eszter Götz reports on an exhibition of the Manfred Heiting’s Collection in Cologne. Although the exhibits are selected from a historical collection, the exhibition shows the history of photographing not as a linear process but as large variety of exhibits about present days.

In first essay György Szegő, who always approaches from the esoteric theory of art to the subject of his essays, introduces two artists using photos in their artistic work. On Katalin Kádár’s towns photos the densing world seems to be expanding, he notes: the surface being the most inward and the divine essence — the “selbst” (self) — the most outward. There is no point in asking about László 2 Hegedűs’s work — ABCDE — whether it is a genre picture, or a calligraphy or a diaporama or a photo or art, because it is expressly a “Work of Art”.

In a second essay titled “Machine Age and Picture of Ruins” György Szegő reports on two photo exhibitions. One in the Budapest Ethnographic Museum brought over from Florence by Fratelli Alinari — oldest Photographers Association in the world — showing press photos about Italy in the 20th century. The other one in Kunsthalle Krems, is a selection of the R+P Herzog Collection in Basel, titled “Tomorrow forever — photography as ruin” the idea of the concept of the second exhibition has been borrowed from Walter Benjamin.

Ute Eskildsen interviewed William Eggleston, photo artist living in Memphis, USA, using dye transfer printing to his photos. This year he is the Prize-Winner of the Swedish Erna and Victor Hasselblad Foundation.

Gyula Munkácsy’s “Computer in the Museum” is the last of a series of theses by graduates of a joint postgraduate training course at the Eötvös Loránd University and the Hungarian National Museum. In connection with computer-aided processing of historical photographs the author deals with processes such as scanning, the use of multimedia, retouching damaged photos by using softwares etc.

Photos of German photographer Wilhelm von Gloeden who used to live in Taormina, count as treasures of collections and this is why Etelka L Baji is delighted to report on the exploration of two unprocessed Gloeden-albums in the library of the Budapest Academy of Fine Arts.

Zoltán Fejér continues a series of articles about the history of Hungarian photographic industry. This part is devoted to Nándor Bárány born 100 years ago, author of several textbook on optical science, university professor, who set up the Optical Department of Gamma Optical Works beside designing lenses.

In an article titled “The Man of surprises” Péter Tímár presents Endre Schwanner, our editor and a dear colleague, who is an expert on phototechnics, correspondent of the Cologne-based photokina. Two articles by Endre Schwanner are published in this issue of Fotóm?vészet. For long years Endre Schwanner used to photograph technical sport events, theatrical performances, musicians and his colleagues.

Svenska dagbladet by Peter Tímár — Our Polaroid Gallery hosted Nyíregyháza based György Boros. Seeing his bright colourful photos of the picturesque Sósfürdő, it does not seem to be an exaggeration the author concluding that Boros’s pictures are suggesting a kind of wanderlust.

Endre Schwanner presents the latest professional lens of Canon and Nikon based on factory newsletters. In another article titled “A not much debated question” the author elaborates on some sales problems of the latest automatic SLR cameras

Péter Szabó gives an short account of two new digital SLR cameras, Nikon D1 and Kodak DSC 660 put almost at the same time on the market. He puts a special emphasis on the differences between the two cameras targeting different user circles.