Summary - 2014/4.

Vol. 2014/4 of Fotóművészet begins with an interview with Dóra Maurer artist, made by Sándor Bacskai: "The Képcsarnok Vállalat (Picture Gallery Co.) commissioned graphic artists to design e.g. etchings for the Mining Museum in Sopron or for a big factory or plant. These commissions were acquired by a special agent-network. Usually, a 30×40 cm black-and-white plate had to be »processed« (etched); it did not take long, it was amusing, and besides it left me time to do my own work. I was given three or four commissions annually, I made my living this way, I could even afford to travel abroad."

In Erotic and death Zsolt Péter Barta writes about Gábor Kerekes's last work: "There is one picture that differs completely from the series or from the stacks  named by Gábor (Dead, Plug &Play, Glamour, Fetish): a picture of a black glass. Never in my life have I seen such a shivering glass, its bowl from which you can drink, is claret-coloured, it is painted in clotted blood colour, what seems to be pitch-coal-black on the photo, and its foot is semi-transparent glass. Since seeing it for the first time, this gloomy sight has been preying on my mind. Why does someone make something like that? What can be drunk from it? What does the emotionless picture made of it symbolize?"

In Intimacy woven from light Ágnes Telek-Nay scrutinizes Zsolt Hamarits's series – Baroque brutal: "The series made of Villő Steiner textile designer, is a portrait even if the face can hardly or sometimes not at all be seen. Using the same brave and emphatic gesture Hamarits turns the artistic form of the nude out; in each case the emphasis distracts the attention from the nude. You feel it intimate not because of the sexuality but because of the intimate movements and motives: twining of patterns, the selection of poses together portray the personal meaning layer."

The topic of Virág Böröczfy's article – The monuments of transience – is Ildikó Péter's photo series – Temporary: "The Lucien and Rodolf Hervé Prize which can be bidden for every two years, has been awarded for the fifth time in 2014. This year on the tenth anniversary of the Prize, it has been for the first time that the winner is a Hungarian photographer. Hungarian success at last in Paris! – you could say. The topic of Ildikó Péter's series – Temporary – is the relationship between disused man-made establishments and their environment, so to say raising monuments of the traces of one-time human presence in the scenery."

János Palotai is the author of the article Facture and structure about the exhibition You feel it on your skin: "Réka Szent-Iványi's and Krisztián Zana's photo-series should be dealt with separately. With the separation because of the age limit, anathema – one-time used to mean the »expulsion« – would suit better to it. The lingerie-fetishisms of Szent-Iványi's man which he doesn't believe to be wrong (bad?) or odd, transgresses the limit of tolerance. Zana's young »mixed doubles« (V–F) seem to go even further, they do not suffer from sexual identity disorder, they just want to feel suffering and pleasure at the same time, coupling   sexual desire with cruelty."

Anne Kotzan reports on the 45th Les Rencontres Arles: "The term Parade chosen as title of the this year's series of events is absolutely right: besides the term being used for the first time for the festive procession, the meaning of farewell is also implied in it. The term 'parade' taken from French parlance is used e.g. for parrying and ending in sports language. This year's event constitutes indeed a turning point, a kind of termination in the long history of the festival. This has been the last year under the direction of François Hébel, who used to head the festival as director in 1986 and 1987 and then between 2002 and 2014."

György Szegő reports on an exhibition devoted to the couple Lillian Bassman – Paul Himmel in the Kunst Haus Wien: The exhibition is made complete by the most beautiful private photos of the couple's private life (they have got two children), because they picture the atmosphere of the unconventional intellectual medium of the era; not that of the hippie known much better today, not his otherness, but that of the hardly mediatised, that of the almost scandal free life-style-reformer. They themselves used to be thrilling models; they exposed each other and their family, with pleasure. Even advanced in age they liked to photograph each other using a mirror. And more than once they made use of the experience of the experimental work on those private photos, as well.

Photographer Fausto Giaccone grown-up in Sicily: "In the summer of 1975 he was staying in Portugal, where fundamental social changes generated by the carnation revolution and the disintegration of colonies were going on before the very eyes of journalists from half of the world. In August, by accident he is the only witness of the seizure of lands in Ribatejo as a result of the agricultural reform of the new system. This is a great experience of waking memories and feelings from the past: it recalls the post-war seizure of huge Sicilian estates in his childhood."

Anna Megyeri wrote a study about Árpád Serényi photographer in Zalaegerszeg: "Our idea about Árpád Serényi has been formed by the many times probably exaggerated, biased reports by mostly contemporary journalists, but the knowledge of still  growing collection of several hundreds of photos and post-cards stored in the Göcsej Museum and other public collections have also been of great help. His whole life and activity was interwoven by the provincial society he was living in."

Zoltán Fejér commemorates Joe Mihályi constructor-in-charge of Rochester Eastman Kodak,  born 125 years ago in Hungary:   "In the mid-thirties Mihályi was involved in the work of the designer team of the Bantam camera(series) using 35 mm unperforated film as backing paper roll film. This accounted for a very important development with Kodak, because the management of the company intended this camera to be a lower-cost competitor design of Leica. At that time started Mihályi's cooperation with Walter Dorwin Teagué outstanding designer of the epoch.

The world is not only about Photoshop! Attila Montvai argues in the title of his series of articles: "The last part of this series scrutinizes changes – on designer level – in the view creating ability of photography as a result of binary technology gaining ground. As long as the problem is restricted to the hardware and software background, the question can relatively easily be settled. The situation will, however, significantly change if the photography is scrutinised as communication medium. Then the photography transferred from the personal sphere to the public sphere becomes a collective fact requiring elaborate examinations. Consequently, effects of technological questions cannot be restricted to problems related to pressing the keyboard of the computer."

New albums on Péter Tímár's Bookself: Károly Szelényi: Colours – Actions and sufferings of light; Valerie Phillips: Hi you are beautiful how are you; Luke Fowler: Two-Frame Films, 2006–2012; Rosalind Fox Solomon: THEM; Paul Graham: Does Yellow Run Forever?; Grégoire Pujade-Lauraine: A Perpetual Season.