SUMMARY

The first article in this issue of Fotomuveszet is Sándor Bacskai’s interview with photographer Ábel Szalontai head of the Faculty of Photography at the Moholy-Nagy University of Arts, titled I react with my camera to I am surrounded with. “Now for five years I have made intensively and deliberately concentrated the photos of the series – Gates. I believe to be important that I have managed to force myself to thoroughly get to know something. I believe it is typical of me to keep repeating something until I can find out its secret, until I get to know its essence.”

The subject of Rita Somosi’s essay – The end of fairy tales – is the gender roles and the artistic self-consciousness in Luca Gőbölyös’s latest project. The project “I want to get married!” was preceded by extensive research work. For years in formal and informal way Göbölyös was collecting partnership –, most of all marriage-related believes and superstitions. Besides, she watched and analysed gastronomic programmes very popular nowadays, and then she mixed the two like a hundred percent cook.”

Personal photo. Theoretical aspects of the personal photo. The way of seeing – between me and me by Zsófia Somogyi winner of the Kállai Ernő art historian and art critic scholarship of the Ministry of Education and Culture, is a chapter of her research work done from 2007 to 2009. “In the second year of my research work I examined two basic aspects. One is the photographer’s way of seeing when operating the camera. The question related to it is what’s happening on the personal photo by the way of seeing. The second problem is that of the ‘me and the other one relationships’; in this case the question is who looks at whom when making the personal photograph.”

In Ignoring fear and compassion András Bán reports on István Kiss Tanne’s photos. “The definition – amateur – doesn’t exist anymore because chemicals, smells, sensual pleasures ceased to exist, the same as the difficulties of keeping touch or the institutional regulation of professional artist existence, and with this whole post-modern thing the articulation of taste has also stopped existing, and it has been replaced by the “boundlessness” of digital photographing. What strange is that István Kiss Tanne – while witnessing all this – has changed and has not.”

In The lords of time Zsófia Somogyi reports on the exhibition of Norbert Hartyáni, Balázs Simonyi and Géza Hernád winners of the Pécsi József photo artist scholarship. “This year three scholarship winners have participated at the exhibition. Apart from being winners of the scholarship they have another common characteristic with each other: the (photo) series of all of them deal with the matter of structuring of time, of belonging to somewhere and of the compass of everyday life.”

In Debated pictures – law, ethics and photography György Szegő reports on the exhibition of “scandalous” pictures from the collection of the Musée de l’Élysée in Lausanne. “Curators of the exhibition categorized the photos of the exhibition into four groups: personal rights/private sphere, reality and forgery/value relativity, unlawful, tolerated/illicit moral, as well as infringement of copyright.” Among the exhibiting artists were Lewis Carroll, Man Ray, Kevin Carter, Napoleon Sarony, Todd Maisel.

The apropos of Anne Kotzan’s essay on Sylvia Plachy is that the photo artist was awarded Dr Erich Salamon Prize. “She tells stories critically, with compassion, melancholy, with lots of humour and irony, sometimes playfully but never offensively, on her photos. She is more interested in trivial everyday matters than in significant events, catastrophes, remarkable things. The documentation of topical happenings is less important to her than to reveal what’s at the bottom of them. At the same time she has very high standards and she is critical of her own work, as well.”

The subject of Károly Kincses’s study is the Turin Shroud. “What I was wondering about is whether the shroud is the work of human art or a formation born as a result of an inexplicable miracle. In possession of the information and knowledge previously acquired I was prepared that there on the spot something would happen to help me to find an answer to the question. And my reasoning was not wrong. I got known something, and it was worth doing.”

In Radiation György Szegő reports on the Moholy-Nagy-retrospective exhibition in the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt. “The exhibition reassesses László Moholy-Nagy’s position in the universal visual culture. This reassessment is particularly topical at home in Hungary. Not only from the viewpoint interspersed with legends i.e. what is the role of Hungarian emigrant artists assisting at the birth of avant-garde but much more to reveal what aftermath of it has remained. Moreover, just focusing on his personal role: What is in contemporary visual culture that feeds back to Moholy-Nagy?”

György Szegő reports on the exhibition of the Musée d’Orsay – Crime and punishment – and of the Musée Carnavelet – L’Impossible Photographie. Apart from physical depiction of crime, the subject of the exhibition is the visualisation of the apprehension of the psychological motives on one part, and the penalty and punishment on the other part, in similarly double ways. This motive has been and it still is a success topic for photographers.”

In Intentions and pictures Klára Szarka presents two photographs made by press photographer Pál Jónás in 1953. “Visual moments of the absurd and corrupted world may seem separately logical and reasonable but the devised reality of the overall picture made of them reveals the truth. The picture presents not only those shown on it but at the same time it is the imprint of the social order that made possible or binding its creation.”

Nobody has any idea about how many valuables are hidden in the obscure corners of garrets and cellars, in the depths of closets and drawers. This opinion is confirmed by 18 x 24 cm photographs made by graphic artist Endre Török in the mid-sixties in Nagymaros, Ferenc Markovics maintains in The secrets of the yellow cover.

Zsuzsanna Kemenesi reports on the seminar – From family portraits to family picture – held in the Hungarian National Museum. Speakers of the meeting were among others Laura Gasparini (Photo Archive of the Panazzi Library), László Csorba director-general of the Museum, Laurance Short (Jyvaskylá University), Klára Fogarasi (Museum of Ethnography), Beartrix Cs. Lengyel (Historical Photography Archive of the Hungarian National Museum), Gabriella Nyerges (Petőfi Literature Museum), Orsolya Danó and Zoltán Lux (’56 Institute).

Zsuzsa Farkas wants to find out How many photographers are known to us working on the Hungarian Crown territory over the time period 1840 to 1890? As she points out “Up to the present 156 610 photographs of the collection of the Hungarian Museum of Photography have been processed in a database, and names of 6176 photographers have been identified during the processing. This high number has encouraged me to examine and to reconstruct the growth rate of the photographer profession in its earliest period.”

Zoltán Fejér summarizes the life work and Hungarian relations of Heinrich Kühn. In the second volume of his book Readers can read about further interesting details of Kühn’s activity known as the photo artist of the Art Nouveau era. Chapter headings are Country Life, The Linked Ring, Specified Supporting Material, the Stegemann-camera, Hungarian Relation, the Wessely-lens, Exhibition in Műcsarnok, the Still Life.

Attila Montvai starts a new series. The subtitle of the first part – A photographer about the photography – is Maybe we should reconsider what the photograph is! “What is the genuine nature of photography?" When giving the answer to it, one could start e.g. from the scientific, physical basics. Doing so, the following definitions seem to be sensible: 1. The method or the process in which a picture is developed on photosensitive surface. 2. The method, practice or profession that enables to develop, to enlarge/print photos. In particular, the second version can be considered to be tautological.