SUMMARY 2012/1

The first article in Fotóművészet Vol. 2012/1 is Sándor Bacskai’s interview with photo artist László Balassa living in Barcelona. “It is important to me that my pictures have a message (to the viewer), at the same time I try hard to leave the door open, so that the viewers can attribute different meaning to them. Hereby a dialogue will be established, and the picture will become an entity in the viewer’s mind. In this sense the work is never accomplished, it is part of a process, it keeps changing, it is always in move. The ability to change is that makes something to become living, and after a long time it may become interesting.”

Alexa Csizmadia writes about Péter Puklus: “Today, probably the photo arts is the kind of arts which has the largest spanning, and it gives a chance to the fastest artistic perfection. Puklus’s example proves all that very well; earlier he used to make his photos as an «observer», while today he designs his photos as an «engineer», and he himself puts them on the path. As if we saw an evolutionary process, which can be approached the most clearly from the still lives, from the objects.”

“Reality and abstraction: the simultaneous presence of these two rather opposite notion is the most characteristic of the well-ordered world of Anikó Robitz’s photos – writes Rita Somosi in The found constructive world. – From the very beginning she has been interested in geometric structures in her environment, free of complicated theoretical concepts. She takes strict geometric forms as starting-point, but the role of designing is taken over by imaging the real scene, they make the visual abstraction of the world surrounding us visible.”

Rita Somosi has also interviewed Luca Gőbölyös and Dezső Szabó about the work and the prospects of graduates from the Faculty of Photographing at the Budapest Communication and Business College. “You cannot disregard the fact that a private university has totally different opportunities to a state-financed educational institution. We have the opportunity to invite anyone to teach at the university, and the college is technically well-equipped which implies lots of advantage. On top of it, teachers teaching here feel the college to be a bit their own”- says Luca Gőbölyös.

In Comprehension, Facing the space, Edit Barta writes about the project of the Studio of Young Photo Artists (FFS). In her view “It has been time that the FFS – instead of its usual organisational appearance – this time to put its members into the spotlight… since a responsible organisation would be-come not by providing its members opportunity for participating on the collective exhibitions, but – by trying, as a quasi institution, to provide opportunities for its members. Photo artists participating in the project are Péter Trembeczki, Dániel Halász, Emőke Kerekes, Levente Kádár, Lili Zoé Érmezei, Viola Kaulics, the Ív&Candie artist pair (Vinkó Gáldi, Andrea and Éva Szombat), as well as Sári Ember.

In TV-viewers – the delight in idleness in the magnetic field Ági Vedres presents French photographer Olivier Culmann’s series – Watching TV. “The TV-viewers become more personal to us, we don’t see the screen at all, while they are watching it engrossed in it, and yet in a way we are watching the figures of South Park, the actors of Grace Clinic, or some soap operas and the players of political elections, together with them.

“Seba Kurtis currently living in Manchester, had fled Argentine with his par-ents from the 2001 economic crises, and for five years he was living as illegal immigrant in Spain. This is the reason why he looks in a different way at the fate of people balancing on the verge of visibility and invisibility, people de-fenceless, belonging to nowhere – writes Zsófia Somogyi in about the photographer’s series Immigrants’ documents. He is looking for events in others’ stories he, too, has gone through, and he shows a picture of this segment of human torments that is based on real feeling and knowledge.

In Accidents, catastrophes and tragedies Anne Kotzan presents the Mexican Enrique Metinides. “The whole thing started with a car accident: His fa-ther had a small tobacco shop, he sold cameras, then he opened a restaurant. The eleven year-old boy got his first camera, a Nownie Junior, from his father. One day there was terrible accident in front of the restaurant which the boy saw, and he started immediately making photos. An elderly press photographer approached him (and he took him to the mortuary), one year later he appointed him to be his unpaid assistant. This is why the twelve-year old Metinides could publish his first press photograph.

Dr Dénes Legeza lawyer makes public important information in The photo artist’s legal status in different legal relations. As he points out, different legal relations implement different rights to the author and the contractor – in broader sense of the word – (e.g. the university, the employer, those inviting tenders or the contractor). In his present paper he touches on the students’ legal relationship, the adult education legal relationship and the employment.

György Szegő visited Henri Cartier-Bresson’s exhibition in the Vienna Kunst-Haus. “The sub-title is expressive: America – India – Soviet Union, the scenes of the great changes in the 20th century, which at the same time characterize Cartier-Bresson’s mobility. Time coordinates are of course important. 1945–1946: victory of the allied forces, 1948: independence of India, 1954: the So-viet Union after the death of Stalin.” The film material presenting the works of the film-maker Cartier-Bresson (The victory of life, Spain shall win, Homecoming etc.) is also an important part of the exhibition.

Anne Kotzan has sent a report that Paris Photo Fair, the big show of photographic galleries and publishers has been held for 15th time. The invitation to the four day event held last November – exceeding all expectations – was accepted by 117 galleries and 18 publishers from 23 countries, the number of visitors was 35% higher than before. The Budapest Vintage Gallery has participated for the fourteen times at this illustrious photo event.

In Displayed building- the mirror of architecture György Szegő reports on his personal experiences in the Austrian Museum of Applied and Contemporary Arts in Vienna. “The exhibition presents that horizon getting wider in the past years in which the everyday architectural photo – thanks to the new toolbar and abilities of the contemporary arts – got a perspective inconce-ivable before. While the exhibition thematizes the possible interpretation of layers of contemporary architecture and photo arts, it lets insight behind the scenes of architecture.”

The subject of Part 4 of Károly Kincses’ series Hungarian out. Hungarian photographers abroad, is Defecting photographers. “It is impossible to find a so-called common denominator for the reason of photographers leaving Hungary legally or illegally over the period 1957 to 1990. There were personal, family or economic considerations, some fled the country for political reasons others were driven by thirst for adventure, or they found their partner in a foreigner.” Here are a few names of the list of these photographers: Gertrúd Bürger, Gábor Demjén, Éva Hídvégi, Lajos Kudelich, Viktor Mikita, Zsuzsa Kálmán, Katalin Kenyeres (Katalin Arkell), Mariann Maár (Mari Mahr).

In The reaction of light Zsuzsa Farkas writes about where photographing and the camera appear in the systemisation of old Hungarian natural science textbooks. To this end she examined Natural science (1844) textbook of Móric Schirkhuber philosopher and principal and the Experimental Natural Science Textbook (1871) of Ipoly Fehér: “…day by day photography is getting more widespread, and this spreading is promoted most of all by the fact that it has become the subject of public interest and common talk” Ipoly Fehér believed.

The subject of Zoltán Fehér’s article is The camera of Gyula Holics. “To me it is unambiguous: Holics used a standing, roll film, multiple pull-out camera to make his expressive still life photos picturing sometimes amazing details, when he did not work for order… We still don’t know how, where and who designed his master camera which became well-known thanks to his still lives and close-ups. By now we can admire not only the photos but the device used to make those photos.

The subtitle of Part 4 of László Pusztai’s series Colour treatment process deals with the subject of printing. Two subjects are discussed: the relationship between colour treatment and printing (the special case of black-and-white printing included), and the output clear-cut. Subjects are Printing controlling software; Optimum output resolution; Resolution of the picture to be printed; What size of picture can be printed; Output clear-cut; Colour treatment settings; Printer driver settings; Black-and-white printing.