Summary - 2015/1.
Vol. 2015/1 of Fotóművészet begins with an interview with Anna Tihanyi photo artist made by Sándor Bacskai: “Several months before the journey the Budapest – Berlin connection came up to me, and from that point of view I started watching films and making researches in libraries in order to get as close to the town as possible. This way I got through to Hungarian writers’ experiences in Berlin, in which I felt the temporality the most prevailing. I found out stories to visualize this feeling to be able to let know what kind of situations I had to consider as temporary, defenceless, uncertain over the last thirty years.”
In Photoposes Béla Albertini reports on Tamás Féner’s exposition in the byArt Gallery: “Viewing from the form of expression: the layout of the objects or if you like it, their composition points at a very careful pondering. Just like in the old days, the photographers of new objectivity, Féner has nothing left to chance. (In my mind’s eyes I am inclined to see, as after careful pondering he positioned, then time and again he repositioned his objects until he managed to achieve the arrangement acceptable to him.).”
In Begger’s Way of Cross Zoltán Rockenbauer analyses Dezső Váli’s picture variations: “It’s a confusing work, of which the author believes to be the most significant work in his life, and the most worthy of remaining for posterity. Yet Dezső Váli is first of all a painter – and this is not a painting. Váli is at the same time photo artist – but these are not his own photos. Both as painter and photographer, Váli has always shunned portrayal – here however, you see scenes. Then where is the starting point one can rely on to find the right place for the series (of pictures) in the oeuvre?”
In 2TWO Attila S. Tasnády comments on László 2 Hegedűs’s exhibition – Picture practices: “The role of digital post-production is of importance for photos in a large enlargement series. It means manipulations as if they were meditative lingering at the moment of photographing. The extent of changing can be very different, there are pictures on which the sight in front of the camera alone, proves to be sufficient, and this way it is left nearly untouched, while others become subject of lesser of greater artistic further creation.”
Károly Kincses comments on Bea Kolozsi’s essay – Found text: “Pictures, texts found by chance …what is wizardry in it? – one could ask. Wizardry in it is that Kolozsi just pretends as if it were just by chance, but she has reflected a lot on it, searched, selected until hit upon the pictures and texts she used to her pictures. The selections seemingly made by chance, are very much deliberate and original, arising from Kolozsi’s way of thinking and her way of viewing the world. Only the appearance is random, Found Text is just the title of the exhibition, don’t let you be fooled, in fact these are made off photos, selected texts, pairs of metaphors carefully combined. They are works.”
Gábor Pfisztner opened the exhibition – Jelen-Lét (Present-Existence) of the Random Group in November 2014; this has been the apropos of this article: “We could settle down to analyse them, but everybody should do it on his/her own; not the analysis but its discovering. I would prefer to delimit an imaginary space by means of questions where these pictures are placed, that cannot be always – or let’s venture – it is not worth viewing as pictures but rather as printed, as a signal, a reference or a gesture, which in a way refers to the practices that their creators have done or they are still doing, and which in this sense are in reflexive relation with them.”
In Pictures painted with camera György Szegő reports on the exhibition Landscape in my Mind – Nature photo today. From Hamish Fulton to Andreas Gursky in Kunstforum Wien. “The exhibition is a genuine spectacle, contemporary look at the world which at the very moment right after the exposition is no more the same what is shown on the picture. Roland Barthes formulated it as follows: »this is the past already«. While in the past decades by means of the photo one could see the peaks of the 8000 m high mountains, the other side of the moon, the craters of the Red Planet, different world catastrophes. And the exposing gesture originally meant for the documentation has meanwhile changed over to the level of manipulations and fictions. The tradition of landscape still exists but the nature photo has changed to the pictorial construction of reality.”
György Szegő’s other article – Forgeries about the real world deals with Garry Winogrand’s exhibition in Paris: By and large half of the present vintage pictures have never been made shown to the public, more than hundred have never been developed before. Worldwide fame has only now reached the photographer when the collection of his foundations set up for his legacy can be seen on big photo-shows. Winograd is still relatively less known because he left behind us photos that were not finished when he passed away. Laboratory work – so important for the black-and-white work, has been left to the posterity.”
In September 1983 János Kádár went for a short visit to Finland. Press photographer Jorma Komulainen’s album documenting his visit ended up eventually in the Contemporary Historical Museum. Reader can read about it in Marianna Kiscsatári’s article – Tervetuola János Kádár: The press-photographer’s well meaning genial attitude is proved best by the viewing angle of his camera and the topics thought to be worth recording. [..] Genuine photos that back up entirely the Finish political propaganda of that time can be seen at the exhibition.”n
A photography-historical article by Zoltán Fejér presents the Alfa camera produced over the period 1961 to 1968 in Warsaw. “The Alfa is a miniature-camera with 24×36 mm picture format, scaled sharpness-control and Newton-view-finder, a 4,5 speed, 45 mm Euktar/Emitar lens with max 11 locking was built in the first version of the camera sold over the period 1961 to l963. The central shutter could expose B, 30, 60 and 1/125.”
Only two albums have been put on Péter Tímár’s Bookshelf: Sándor Apáti-Tóth: Atlantis, Péter Fülöp: 100 Blues – but there would be all the more time to read through the two books in detail.
