SUMMARY 2007/4

The first article in Fotóművészet 2007/4 is an interview made by Sándor Bacskai with Ferenc Rédei press photographer and photo editor, who was born in 1944, and for about forty years he worked for the Hungarian press photography. First he had worked for small newspapers of low circulation; in 1971 he went over to the daily Népszava, then in 1985 to Népszabadság, and following his retirement he went on working for the paper. “In my opinion digital technology hasn’t done any good to the professional skill of press photographers – he maintains – it ‘breaks them of’ using their brain. The question is whether they would be able to get access to a professional community where they are expected to use their brain and where they are kept an eye on.”

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Péter Tímár went to see Péter Zsolt Barta’s building photos of hall interiors. “The pictures hardly portray the buildings, and as far as they do, it is in no way similar to the conventional building photos… What you see on the pictures, those are the reception spaces of the “secular religions” of different eras, their tell-tale imprints” the author writes in The paraphrase of gothic.

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For long film-maker Péter Gothár (director of Time has stopped, Purely America, Division etc.) has made photographs; partly because it is linked with his profession since prior to shootings he regularly makes motive pictures. “It was with intent that I did not include any picture linked to a film in the present selection of photos. Let’s say that these are private letters.” Sándor Bacskai is the interviewer of the interview Somehow I have always got a camera on me.

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Ildi Hermann’s series of pictures – Vacationers –present the world of holiday cottages built in the sixties and seventies where the build-ing material and the way of building, the do-it-yourself, the furniture and personal belongings of that time have strongly preserved the atmosphere of the era. “The photos themselves are documents without any irony or exaggeration” – Judit Csatlós states in On the track of nostalgia.

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Tamás Aknai reports on the exhibitions of the Kortárs Magyar Fotográfia (Hungarian Contemporary Photography) organised on the slogan “One square meter” in Pécs. He comments on the pictures of photographers such as Enikő Hangay, Ádám Cuhorka, Péter Langmár, Luca Göbölyös, Tibor Gyenis. “I myself believe Péter Herendi’s shockingly mysterious pictures to be the best pictures of the whole series of exhibitions. He managed to keep away from all kinds of speculations, the seemingly monochrome but actually far too colourful surfaces of the objects are well crammed into the one square meter.”

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In her report – The invariable easiness of the existence – Zsófia Somogyi writes about the photo show – It remains like that – hall-marked among others by Gábor Arion Kudász, Gabriella Csoszó, Zsolt Fekete in kArton Gallery, “the key-question (of the show) is the relation of man to nature, the relationship left to itself after the intervention, or just adapting itself to the changed relations in a specific way, rewriting the artificial one; and their opposites, as well.”

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In In front of the hypocritical absurdity Gábor Pfisztner gives publicity to the exhibition The Avant-garde I, neoavant-garde tendencies in Hungarian photo art: 1965 to 1983 organised by Sándor Szilágyi, as well as to the books taken as basis to the exhibition. Szilágyi hit upon a number of latent images and interviewed quite a lot of people whose work has not yet been publicised in writing. His work should be considered “to fill a long felt gap among others because he endeavours to accomplish a kind of systematization , to mark out a framework within which the most different personalities and artist positions can be located while trying to position them into a significantly larger system of coherences including the medium.”

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Daido Moriyama pioneer of existentialist Japanese photography is the subject of an article by Anne Kotzen. “ It caused a great sensation as he scorned uncompromisingly all conventions in the late sixties, and by now he has become one of the most innovative figures of contemporary Japanese photography. He keeps passing the bounds while he concentrates on moods and nothings, not on great events. Apparently, he is looking for himself in his pictures, and he is on the track of his one time broken heart.”

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Margherita Spiluttini Austrian photographer is considered to be one of the reformers of architectural photography in Austria. She keeps photographing prominent outstanding buildings designed by foreign and Austrian architects. She is counted not only as one of the most popular chronicler of her era in the world of architecture but she has contributed a lot to what kind of image has been developed of architecture. In Built environment Gábor Pfisztner writes about Margherita Spiluttini who has turned sixty this year.

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A double photo show – Roma & Sinti and the Yves Leresche-ex-hibition in Kunsthalle Krems – presented the Roma (Gipsy) existence by means of pictures and text. “The strong point of the exhibition is that black-and-white photographs hanging between colourful oil-paintings provide the viewer the possibility of parallel assessment, because the genuine sociological-ethnographic picture appears with the precision of photography – György Szegő states in his article Portrayal of Gipsies anno and today.-

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In a paper on the history of photographing– Photographs on the altar of the nation – Emőke Tomsics analyses the relationship between charity and photography in the 1860-ies. “In my paper I try to give an insight into the history of photographing as into that of a special commodity. The photograph became commodity with the appearance of visit card, and it became not only the keeper of the past in the form of albums and turned to one of the bastions of its identity, but within a very short time it has taken public role, it has become a shaping factor of public taste and public opinion, a shaping factor of the national character.”

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Two young designers Andrea Pálos and Gábor Rakonczai paddled through the Atlantic Ocean in an own made boat. A journey like that may have many dangers and ventures in store, but eventually it is the test of someone’s physical and mental fitness. Fantastic photos were made during the voyage; a selection of the photos are shown in 51 days on the Atlantic Ocean.

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Frida Kahlo world famous painter’s father – Guillermo Kahlo – emigrated as a merchant from Karlsruhe (Germany) to Mexico in 1890. Frida’s husband Diego Rivera prominent painter of the 20th century told of his father-in-law: “(he is) a German analytic constructor/de-structor and a sceptic Dream Dancer” György Szegő is the author of the article – Frida’s father – about the photographer Guillermo Kahlo.

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Those who know Endre Schwanner photo artist, author of Fotóművészet, are also aware of his close links to the Hungarian motorcycling that used to be very popular in post-war decades. In his second selection of pictures – Motorcyclists, anno… that world, for sure disappeared for good by now, is brought to life again.

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Zoltán Fejér sums up the history of T-layer in his review of technological history.

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