SUMMARY– 2017/4

The photographs of Imre Drégely appear in many Hungarian exhibitions, however he is also one of those photographers whose lifework is undeservedly uncollected and might worth a large solo exhibition. Sándor Bacskai during the conversation with him tried to reveal systematically the impacts on each stage of the artist’s life, the sources of inspiration and the ideas to be implemented.

Dezső Szabó presented a completely new material in the Vintage Gallery in autumn. Both the subject matter and the technical implementation of the presented artworks are rather innovative, even within the author’s lifework. The change in the approach and the works themselves are analyzed by György Cséka.

Landscape is a very popular genre, both in painting and photography. In addition, the canon of landscape painting was formed at a time close to the date of photography’s appearance. The article of Zsuzsa Farkas compares the Transylvanian landscapes of Ferenc Veress to the landscape painting of that era, and to the photographic landscape representations from the other parts of the world. The article is one of the few writings which are discussing photographic works in a wider iconographic context.

Péter Herendi has been producing his artworks using light for 45 years. Whether a Xerox machine, a camera, a scanner, plain paper, CIBA raw material, or an empty file, he has always found his own instruments. Herendi is the kind of photographer who creates various series of images using various techniques. McLuhan’s sentence is especially true in his case, and he has always explored the possibilities of a new imaging process with a great pleasure. In this issue we can read a detailed summary of his incredibly rich lifework by Klára Szarka.

MyMuseum Gallery of Budapest is the most recent actor on the market of galleries working with contemporary photography. The interview with the Gallery’s Curator, Tünde Török, was conducted by Rita Somosi. It includes the particular profile of the Gallery, their objectives and the artists they are working with. Furthermore, the marketing practice which was introduced in Hungary by MyMuseum is also introduced within the interview.

The review and essay contest launched by FOTÓMŰVÉSZET has two prize winners. This edition includes the article of Zsófia Somogyi-Rohonczy. Zoltán Kugler tried to capture the everyday life in the emerging state of Israel. The revolutionary momentum, political will and the justification of the new state’s existence required the creation of heroes similar to those in Hungary after the birth of the Soviet Union or following 1948. A selection of Zoltán Kugler’s works could be viewed in Deák 17 Gallery during ArtMarket Budapest.

Anne Kotzan, in her article published in this edition, offers insight to the lifework and especially its relationship with nature of a Swiss photographer deceased in 2010. Balthasar Burkhard was a dedicated artist, who cooperated closely with Harald Szeemann in Bern. He was one of the first photographers who exposed photographs at 1:1 scale directly onto canvases, already in 1969. All his lifework was characterized by the large-scale black and white images. The starting point of Anne Kotzan’s article is his exhibition at the Museum Folkswang in Essen.

The work of Ágnes Eperjesi entitled 365 Days of D. is only partly composed of photographs, nevertheless we host György Cséka’s assay on the pages of FOTÓMŰVÉSZET. The reason for this is the fact that we consider important and opportune both the essay and the artwork which was presented by Eperjesi in INDA Gallery.

The works of Russian photographers are rarely seen in Hungarian institutions, in that regard a breakthrough was made a few years ago by the exhibition of Ludwig Museum. Olga Toblerouts was among the artists already at that time, and now the Kunsthalle Budapest organized a solo exhibition of her artworks. Ági Vedres talked to the young Russian generation’s artist about her work and experiences so far and her future plans.

Zoltán Fejér surprised us again with the description of a camera from the early stage of photography. The camera of the British manufacturer was produced in the Glasgow factory of John Lizars in the early 1900s. The camera was designed to travelers, providing them with a light and reliable machine wherever they went.