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The progressist aspect of Hungarian art from the 50’s to the 21st
century, especially in the field of photography, remains a relatively
little-known facet of the history of art. Yet, we ought to celebrate the
creative commitment of these pioneer artists in view of the hostile
environment in which they managed to develop the practice of artistic
photography and express their talent. At the time, the confinement of
the country, generated by the division of Europe and perpetuated by the
Soviet power, prevented any ideological and cultural exchange with the
rest of the world. The Hungarian neo-avant-garde did not however
renounce to contact the occidental art scene and saw photography as an
ideal medium, affordable and suited to facilitate the diffusion of their
art.
György Aczél, who oversaw the cultural policy under the
government of János Kádár, in power from 1956 to 1988, distinguished
three groups of individuals within the Hungarian artistic scene: the
“supported”, the “tolerated”, and the “banned”. Photographers, besides
the official ones who were supported by the government, oscillated
between the groups of the “tolerated” and the “banned”. Furthermore,
they did not have an exemplary model, unlike painters with Lajos Kassák
or writers with Miklós Mészöly, to look up to or to oppose. The three
great Hungarian photographers of the previous generation, namely
Brassaï, André Kertész and László Moholy-Nagy, had indeed left the
country before World War II. Therefore, the avant-gardist spirit of the
new generation of photographers established itself in the absence of any
pioneer model.
Despite this highly unfavourable context,
numerous photographers of the Hungarian neo-avant-garde gave rise, from
the 50’s to the 80’s, to a very rich artistic production which is
characterised by an innovative aesthetic that is still striking
nowadays. Some of them turned to abstraction. Among the various artists
who emancipated themselves from the imperative of realism, we ought to
cite the multidisciplinary artist Csaba Koncz. His photographs, which
are devoid of any narrative purpose, rely on a game of proportions,
framing and soft-focus effects. This form of abstraction, which the
author Sándor Szilágyi identifies as “organic abstraction”, bears
witness to Koncz’s interest in the beauty of the image rather than the
story it tells.
György Lörinczy is also an eminent figure of the
Hungarian abstract photography. After various experimentations, he
produced purely abstract images for the first time in 1966 with the
series Stickies in which he photographed various liquids, enlarging
their proportions to the extreme. He is at the root of a rich
theorization of abstract photography and consequently became a reference
in the eyes of the next generations of young photographers. His
approach may remind us of the experimentations of Katalin Nádor who, at
the end of the 60’s, photographed close-ups of water droplets and soap
bubbles, creating thereby geometric structures and compositions with a
graphic aspect.
In Hungary, abstraction was so far from
complying with the official realistic art advocated by the power that it
was de facto a neo-avant-gardist approach. Thus, the critic Péter Ábel,
in the magazine Foto, raised in 1968 the following question: “does
abstraction has any place in photography?”. This question, beyond any
aesthetic dimension, is first and foremost political and perfectly
exemplifies the dissenting aspect that was assigned to abstract
photography at the time. Therefore, the author concluded, regarding
Koncz’s photographs, that they were “the works of an artist living in
the conditions of capitalist society”.
If abstraction is an
important aspect of the Hungarian neo-avant-garde, it does not mean
however that it is its only distinctiveness. Figuration was also a
prolific source of inspiration for these artists and became a privileged
place of expression for their desire of renewal. In this regard, we can
evoke a particular genre, specific to the Hungarian neo-avant-garde
photography, that Szilágyi named “urban visions”. These images, unlike
what a naive first glance could lead us to think, are the fruit of a
search for identity and a way for these artists to develop a new
photographic language. Gábor Kerekes, with his timeless and graphic
views of the city, is undoubtedly the most notorious ambassador of this
genre.
Just as the urban visions, the self-portraits of these
photographers are symptomatic of their search for identity. Those of
Gábor Kerekes, degraded or partial, express the torments suffered by the
artist who is afflicted by his double life as an infiltrated agent for
the Ministry of the Interior. The self-portraits of Szuszi Ujj, in turn,
bear witness to a genuine questioning on female identity, while the
ones of György Stalter stage himself, not without a touch of irony, in
his role as a photographer.
Besides their own image, the
photographers of the Hungarian neo-avant-garde also captured the image
of others and explored the genre of portrait by thwarting its
traditional conventions. This is the case of György Stalter and his
satiric portraits, but also András Balla who is notably renowned for his
numerous photographs of a hermit named Imre Borostyán.
Beyond
these considerations on the genres and subjects they treated, the
photographers of the Hungarian neo-avant-garde developed and carried out
diverse practices and techniques which were progressist per se. They
notably had recourse to light, not only as a mean of illuminating the
photographed scene, but as a tool enabling them to create an image.
János Vetó, for example, had the idea to use a flashlight in order to
draw with light. The Brettschneider group, formed notably by Tibor
Szalai and László Vincze, elaborated a process called “light
calligraphy” which resulted in mysterious images that embody a new form
of photographic expression.
The notion of sequence is also
essential to these Hungarian photographers who loved organising their
images in series, diptych or triptych, thwarting structural conventions
and adjoining on this occasion a new sense to their photographs. It is
notably the case of Károly Kismányoky, György Stalter, or János Vetó who
thought his images in sequences since the beginning of the 70’s.
Even
if the recognition of photography as a proper artistic medium was
established later in Hungary than in the West, especially in comparison
with America, photography was nevertheless a true breeding ground for
avant-gardist experimentations. It was, primarily, a way for these
Hungarian artists to express themselves differently, such as Tibor Hajas
who, despite his vocation as a poet, saw the photographic medium as a
mean to compensate the obsolescence of language and as an opportunity to
convey modernist ideas. Photography, in all its frontality, visuality,
and, above all, its democratic dimension, became a privileged medium for
these artists, including the ones who specialized in other mediums,
such as the painter Imre Kocsis.
Text written by Clémence Vichard