SUMMARY
The last issue of this year’s Fotóművészet starts with an interview. On the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Hungarian-born Lucien Hervé (Elkán László) who lived from the thirties on in Paris, Quentin Bajac head of the photographic section in the Paris Pompidou Centre and curator of a number of exhibitions, compiled a life work’s selection of the photos of the photo artist who passed away two years ago. “Our selection’s aim is to give a picture of his life work fitting into the context of modernism” – Quentin Bajac says in the interview made by French photo journalist Marguerite Pilven.In Savages and Meeks, Young and Elderly, Klára Szarka writes about the photo competition organised by the Cultiris Picture Agency. As she points out: “The number of competitors (almost five thousand pictures of more than five hundred photographers) exceeded all expectation, and the result was more than surprising, since prize-winners were selected from very different generations and trends.” The interview presents prize-winners Gábor Kapolka, Lajos Gombos and Dániel Németh.Just like before, this year, as well, Gábor Pfisztner inspected the examination-works of the graduates of the faculty of visual communication at the Moholy-Nagy Art University. In Diploma 2009 he reports on the following young photographers and their works: Sári Ember (Album of M), Máté Fenyvesi (Vortex), Katalin Kovács (Country Torso), Virág Lajti ( The Fót Mansion), Bence Mikonya (External viewpoints), László Nánási (Panel Pictures), Norbert Perness (The omnipresence of vigilant fate), Csanád Szesztay (MANES – The spirit of ancestors). “The new robe of the King?” is the title of the article by Gábor Pfisztner about Jan Saudek one of the best-known Czech photographers in the last 25 years. “Gradually he made less and less photos, and reached out for the brush and palette in order to create the paraphrases of his earlier pictures saturating them with new contents…. Those believing to understand that artist – seemingly a daydreamer like a child but in reality much rather looking facts in the face, the problems of adult people, retiring into the world of fiction away from the naked facts of reality, are compelled now to start again familiarizing themselves with the artist’s life work” – the author points out.Péter Tímár reports on the exhibition of the prize-winners of the Pris CAFéFOTO competition in France: Philippe Bernard proved to be the best on his spring-summer selection in Arles (“the photos made with conventional photographic devices without any digital manipulation, are superb in their fuzziness”), and Thomas Rigade on the autumn-winter show in Paris in the same competition (“in a sense his exhibit constitutes a travel in the time short but still stretching to infinity and at the same time it is saluting the Polaroid”).György Szegő visited an exhibition in Austria of Anette Kelm born in Stuttgart and currently living and working in Berlin. According to the author “No matter that 80 years passed since 1930, yet in a way she became the leading star of an even newer “Neue Sachlichkeit”. Beyond the photographic conventions of photographing, her way of seeing things is characterized by analytic logic, idealized picture sharpness, the quotation-like practice of meticulously precise studio object photographing.”Apropos of the exhibition Momente und Jahre in Cologne Anne Kotzan comments on Gabriele and Helmult Nothhelfer’s photos: “The artist couple’s black-and-white photos are not bright or spectacular, they are neither portraits nor snapshots, rather a sort of conceptual documentary photos which grasp one’s dispositions in a changing society, able to disclose the essential but the invisible behind the visible, as well, by means of soft tones.”In Central-European totems György Jerovetz writes about the eighty years old Czech avant-garde photographer Ladislav Postupa: “many of the photos on show have inherited the nanny’s playfulness and presenter character, at the same time, however, its self-centredness is inspired not by pure thirst for destruction but by a special sarcastic way of seeing things. This is the self-centredness, mystic totem-creating force, which – combined with sarcasm – creates its own language. The artist is looking for the words of the language first of all among the cast-off or too common objects of our life.”In 1992 Koutaiba Al-Janabi made a series about John Halas (Halász János) animator living in London known among others for the cartoon Animal Farm. In Internal composure by Hanna Heffner Koutaiba recalls the work with Halas and their relationship: “I had the feeling that I see a man’s fall, that was the reason of my opting for black-and-while material, and this is why I illuminated in that atmosphere.”The Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Art started announcing competitions for photographers under 35 in 1995. The primary objective of the programme A Young Portfolio is to enlarge the permanent collection of the museum. The organisers put on show the selected photos to present them to the public and to make people acquainted with the photographers. According to the leaflet of the museum their declared intention is to help young talented photographers to become known artists of the near future.” – Gábor Pfisztner starts his report – Photographic arts.“Today Photomeeting Luxemburg is hardly known to the inner circle either, although it mobilizes relations beyond the frontier, as well – maintains Anne Kotzan. A large selection of workshops, studios are in the centre of the meeting. The connecting link among different approximation ways is the processing of a specific central subject which enables to present current positions in contemporary photography.”In Window to the world Katalin Jasolvszky and Emőke Tomsics set as aim to present the about ninety-five thousand photos in the international collection of the Historical Photo Archive of the Hungarian National Museum. An important conclusion of the paper is “The history of report in the 20th century was far from being as an unambiguous triumphal march as it might be concluded from our brief summary … the visual revolution provoked by the photograph necessarily had to lead to ending the absolute domination of written word, and it became indispensable source of the 20th century’s history for the historian.”In Photo technology and photokina Zoltán Fejér talks about his memories to the Readers: “Among the Leicas got into my hands, naturally the first M3 from 1956, bought second-hand in 1970 made the greatest impression on me. I still have got it, although it is over 50 nearing 60 just like its owner, and it does work.Attila Montvai’s series on photo technology – The relationship between the measurable and visible parameters of photography (Technological basics of digital picture generation) has come to the end. The title of the article summarizing the series is Does much spoken … make a sense? And the chapter headings are Technological conservatism; Ritual conservatism; The fundamental difference; The new role – real virtuality; New opportunities; The visual quality.New albums on Péter Tímár’s Bookshelf: Hungarian News Agency: Portraits of the age 1989–1994; Ilona Balog Stemler: History and photography; Focus Group (Pécs): Situation report 2009.
