SUMMARY – 2013/3.
Vol. 3/2013 of Fotóművészet begins with an interview with photo artist Erika Lakatos, creator of the Roma icons. “In the US I made friends with a Roma dancer from Rajasthan, quite a lot of my photos have been made of her… She seemed a magnetic figure to me, as a matter of fact Romas originate from Rajasthan, and this is why I was so excited while photographing her. It was her photo I started drawing on first with wax crayon; it was an experimental play. I like to try to open the boundaries between forms and styles both in music and photography.”
In Fading flowers Edit Barta reports on Szilvi Tóth’s exhibition – Flower Power – in Várfok Gallery: “Through the gesture of hiding becomes the flower the symbol of sexuality, fertility; you see mysterious woman’s eyes, facial parts, which are covered with large, human face-sized orchids. Destructive superposition of not-matching layers and its disproportionateness produce erotic tension on the photos.”
In “Imperfect” states of young people András Bán comments on this year’s show of the yearly staged photo exhibition series Random using the works of young photographers of the Studio of Young Photo Artists and the Association of Hungarian Photo Artists: “Unfortunately the moderately successful Random 13 failed to be the resounding entrée of a new generation or a thematic exhibition that would be a benchmark in the history of artistic mentality. But both ideas posed by the organisers are topical: more and more we are dying to know of what kind the new photographer of the digital era would be, and it is more and more possible that for the artist of our age projects sociologically and philosophically grounded, that are comprehensive and may involve more than one media, would lead to the genuine presence.”
In Inside view. Young (photo)artistic positions on Essl Award’s exhibition Gábor Ébli as member of the prize-giving jury shares his experience with the Readers: “The Essl Art Award Central and Eastern Europe for which applications had been invited for the first time in 2005, is awarded every second year, so this year it has been awarded for the fifth time. Since the also Austrian Strabag-Prize has covered a substantial segment of mid-generation artists, the Essls have selected their target group from the younger generation. The only condition for application is the student status at an art university. It can be a BA, an MA, or undivided or a DLA training. And this already raises the first dilemma how can a second-year BA be compared e.g. with a PhD undergraduate. The jury lays down no rule for it.”
In Life strategies Rita Somosi presents the diploma works of nine students graduating from the faculty of photographing at the Moholy-Nagy Art Academy. As she points out, never before happened, that such a low number (six) of undergraduates were given MA degree. The photographers and the diploma works are Adél Koleszár: The city of opportunities; Ábel Krulik: Arche types; Viktor Váradi: Liquid Moment; Zsuzsanna Marinka: Unclaimed bodies; Katalin Vasali: Erosion; Árpád Horváth.
Zsófia Somogyi has published a paper The representation of Gipsies in the last few years of Hungarian contemporary photography: “In the case of the human rights photo it is particularly important that it corrodes the stereotyped, commonplace pictures, or many times it goes against them. Destroying the media-stereotypes is a very important task, because these media-stereotypes can confirm their prejudices for the masses, and they cover up facts, the (personal) realities, on top of it, they highly affect the self-image of the group portrayed… In the light of this there is particularly need for responsible, cliché breaking image and other information.” The paper comments on the photos of Zoltán Molnár, Terri Potoczna, Tamás Zádor, Szabolcs Barakonyi, Balázs Turai and Péter Korniss in detail.
A year ago today was opened the X6 Gallery – Klára Szarka writes on this event: “As member of the Lumas-network, X6 offers the whole international portfolio. I.e. by now you can make your choice from more than 1400 photos. The portfolio is varied from style and many other viewpoints. In the international assortment there are historical works, from the works of the biggest (Man Ray, Edward Steichen, Márton Munkácsi or Berenice Abbott) to popular film shots a lot of things are available.” n
György Szegő reports on two exhibitions. Pictures of Helmut Newton were on show in the Museum of Fine Arts: “The giant prints in the last exhibition hall make a deep impression. These are his last photos made for Vogue. He could no more see them in print; five women each, frontally, clad in black, at dusk and a bit later; four wearing sunglasses, the fifth wears no glasses: they glance back at Newton “Eurydice”. The others wearing blind glasses are cruel prophets, the angels of death.”
Linda McCartney’s (Paul McCartney’s common law wife) photos were exhibited in the Vienna Kunsthaus: “no photographer had been admitted to the strictly entrenched world of the Beatles and pop stars, no professional photographer had been let make shots, unless the marketing made it necessary. The human face of stars was nearly unknown. Linda as “member of the family” became an exception. Thanks to her creator sensibility her pictures are the chronicles of sometimes extreme, sometimes intimate but otherwise invisible moments. At the same time they are the documentation of the generational fights and resounding victory of the beat-revolution of the sixties.”
From an essay Evidence, Truth and Order: Photographic Records and the Growth of the State by art historian John Tagg living in the US, that section is published in this magazine in which the author quotes and analyzes a guide written by the inspector general of the Birmingham City Police for the police photo achieves. The article is completed by a sketch to the “ First »prisoners’ photos« used for identification” compiled by Tamás Urbán who drew up the illustrated history of the Hungarian Police.
In Fotonovelas Anne Kotzan depicts in words the portrait of George Friedman who lived in Argentine: “György Friedman born in a Jewish family in 1910 in Miskolc … belonged to the generation of Hungarians who fled the country between the two world wars, and they made a successful career abroad, as well either as photographer or in the motion-picture industry, and this way they made themselves memorable for long.”
Éva Fisli’s article Version of a connection. André Kertész and Robert Capa is a part of a topical series, in which the author endeavours to publicize – among others - the findings of her researches in the André Kertész archives in France: “I wanted to point out that we still owe the (micro)stories of the universal history of photography that cannot be unravel but by us; it is the responsibility of Hungarian speaking researchers to keep in mind archives kept abroad; on the other hand it is the duty of the archives to make the documents in Hungarian accessible to researchers.”
Etelka Baji reports on the photo treasures relating to Hungary in Albertina in Vienna: “More than once I have had the opportunity to make research work in Vienna looking for photos relating to Hungary in big Austrian state-owned collections. One cannot stress enough that due to our common history very important historical relics are stored there. In short, under Hungarian related (relic) I mean that the subject and the maker of the picture are important for Hungarian history, culture or photo history. Very often our Austrian colleagues do not pay as much attention to these pictures as we would, those pictures are not of that much importance to them as they are to us.”
The subject of Zoltán Fejér’s article is The Ermanox, the hand-held camera with high-speed lens. “Ernemann Co. started selling its Klapp focal-plane shutter cameras in 1901. In these photo cameras the front panel holding the lens can be snapped into the normal position needed by the extension by means of four spring forks, sharpness shall be set by means of the helical focusing of the lens. The first version of the 4,5×6 cm plate Minatur-Klap had been put on the market hundred years ago, then its second version with simplified focal-plane-shutter in 1920. By modifying a body of such new type the manufacturer designed its camera called first Er-NOX then Ermanox.
New Albums on Péter Tímár’s Bookshelf: André Kertész and Szigetbecse; Richárd Széman: Picture book (Photographers on the outskirts of Budapest); Focus (Album of the Focus Photo Club in Pécs); Normantas Paulius: Four Footprints of Buddha; György Jankovszky: I let you know (with completed with the essay of Gábor Pfisztner and György Galántai).
