SUMMARY 2008/2

In the interview Sándor Bacskai presents Gyula Ádám. The photo artist, who was born into a Székely family in Csíkkarcfalva and studied graphics in Marosvásárhely, started documenting everyday life in Transylvania and Moldova in the eighties. Under the title Figuratively, László Beke reports on the Austrian-Hungarian contemporary photo exhibition in the Hungarian Institute in Vienna. “The current selection was put together not only to publicize the photographic life of a country or its capital, it is much more a kind of taking a position in a world, in which billions of pictures are whirling around you. A few dozens of them come to halt for the moment, and they become set to a strange constellation.” Moni Kaszta book-designer very popular in artists circles, compiled a publication titled 31thoughts (one) for every day of a month. The main particularity of the album to be on sale in the bookstores by autumn, is that it is she who made the photos, selected the quotations and formed to a complete whole – a book. Virág Böröczfy interviewed the young graphic designer. Virág Böröczfy reports on the exhibition of the holders of the Pécsi József Photo Artists Scholarship (Krisztián Bócsi, Dániel Kovalovszky, Artúr Rajcsányi, Mária Pecsics, Gábor Arion Kudász, Ildi Hermann, Ádám Magyar, Gábor Ákos Varga). “In ideal case the young artists’ works constitute points of orientation for everybody in regard of the decisive artistic aspirations of Hungarian photography. However, the heterogeneity in the level of this year’s exhibition, may draw the attention of professional circles to the fact, that currently the notion “photo art” has different meaning to different individuals.” In Synthetic Worlds” Alexa Csizmadia reviews the use of model backgrounds and elements: “The model designer is neither branch dictator nor na?ve child but he is someone who understands and is the creator of the perception of the world surrounding us, who is fully aware that our perception is informed by our various historical and cultural experiences. For example we “read” a scenery based on pictures, we have seen in art or in the media; witnesses of the collapsing twin-towers confirmed the same when they compared their experiences to a disaster film.” In Colour magic Zoltán Fejér commemorates the 100^th anniversary of István Szendrő’s birth. After his article published in vol. 2006/1-2 of FOTÓMŰVÉSZET, this time he presents a couple of colour slides made with mini-camera by Szendrő in the forties. “I don’t deny it, I like photo artists whose work can be approached from more than one direction, who are interpreted by many and in many ways, or if they happen to generate polemics” – Antal Jokesz starts his essay By means of photos dimly” in which he analyses Lajos Csontó’s photos. – Lajos Csontó is one of our many-faced artists, who is time to time still able ’to toss another shovel onto his anyway unclassifiable one-decade oeuvre; e.g. by placing into the focus the accurately measured double- or multi-meaning knowingly assumed in his works, or by the way he mixes on a picture surface the components of verbal and visual communication setting different brain centres in motion. In Contemporary Hungarian photo in Berlin Anne Kotzan reports on the event held in the Neues Berliner Kulturverein. Artists participating in the exhibition dreamed by Sándor Tolnai, Dr., director of the institution, are Antal Jokesz, Lenke Szilágyi, Anna Fabricius, Lilla Szász, Gergely László, Péter Rákosi, Ágnes Eperjesi, Gábor Arion Kudász, Dezső Szabó, Tibor Gyenis, Gabriella Csoszó, Gábor Gerhes. The “subject” of György Szegő’s paper Dying Europeans is Kurt Kaindl world-famous photographer who with his co-author Karl-Markus Gauß have been searching for blank spots on Europe’s cultural map for more than a decade. At their exhibition they present long-forgotten small ethnic groups (Sorbes, Cimbres, Sephardis etc.), who has never constituted a nation-state, and yet they have preserved their mother-tongue and a kind of cultural independence. The aim of the series - Social column – by Endre Schwanner permanent author of FOTÓMŰVÉSZET, is to present the every-day life of Hungarian photography in the sixties, and the way his “participant” camera saw the ORWO-course or the national exhibitions.Apropos an accidentally found copy of the Photograph Collection of Pál Rosti (1830-1874), in The fifth album Julia Papp reviews the place of Rosti’s oeuvre takes in the Hungarian and universal history of photography. “In 1854 he had studied photographing in Paris – he pointed out – in order to be able to photograph countries, regions he visited during his journeys, in the most accurate and efficient way. During his journey in 1857-58 in Central and South America he made photos in Cuba, Venezuela, and Mexico. In the history of Venezuelan and Mexican photographing Rosti is deemed to be the first photographer who portrayed the sceneries and sights of these countries with scientific and descriptive aim.” By now I remember the past three years, almost each moment of which passed in the spirit of Lights and facts, as one single fugitive dream – writes Ferenc Markovics in After-life of a book, vol. II. –I have received a lot of well-intentioned, noteworthy comments.” See the Author’s corrections. The Hungarian University of Artists won Epson Art Photo Award – junior photo artist prize. Twelve students of the Moholy-Nagy Art University - Máté Bartha, Sára Ember, Lili Zoé Érmezei, Dániel Halász, Ildikó Péteri, Viola Kaulics, Alexandra Lázár, Lilla Liszkay, László Nánási, Zoltán Szmolka, Dorka Taskovics and Sára Zagyvai – have been conferred a great honour, when taking into consideration, that the number of applicants was more than 1400; Anne Kotzan reports on the event. In “Turbulent years” György Szegő reports on the exhibition of a Viennese and a Parisian photo artist. A Viennese witness of the sixties, 17 years-old autodidact photographer Christian Skrein had photographed the Viennese elite dancing swing at “parties” or the shooting of the Beatles film Help, with a press certificate issued by the publisher of the daily Kurier. Guy Bourdin’s oeuvre is more distinctive, most of his pictures mean more than a fashion photo means, in general. Contrary to Viennese people, he excels more in individual qualities than in collective formalities. Gábor Pfisztner’s essay – In the attraction of opposites – analyses Hungarian aspects of the Bipolar Program aimed to promote co-operation among young artists in several European countries; e.g. the topic of “indolence” (Hochschule der Bildenden Künste, Braunschweig as well as the Moholy-Nagy Art University), In the Wake of Remembrance (Gabriella Csoszó, Lilla Koór, André Lützen), Country Youngsters (Nóra Bánkuty, Ádám Cuhorka and Gergely Tímár, Art Faculty of the Kaposvár University). New albums on Péter Tímár’s Bookshelf: Portraits from Pécs, vol. 2 (Rudolf Halász); Miklós Gulyás : Fatherland – searching Hungary; Péter Szabó Pettendi: Background – Have you ever visited Budapest?; Beatrix Cs Lengyel: Souvenir from Italy. Catalogue of the photos made by Hungarian emigrants in Italy…; Gábor Hámori: Budapest from aerial perspective; Photos of the Year 2007; The Complete Pirelli Calendars; David Lachapelle: Hotel Lachapelle and Heaven to Hotel