Consultants
Consultants of the Budapest Portfolio Review 2018
László Böröcz
László Böröcz, Jewish cultural historian, gallery director. Together with his brother, they founded 2B Gallery in 2002. Their thematic exhibitions reflect on certain topics from unusual points of view. Their exhibitions are organized around the recurring themes of, among others, remembrance, the Holocaust, identity, minorities, and artist families. Their foundation, 2B Cultural and Artistic Foundation, intends to break down barriers with its art programs, in which it displays tradition and historical events through an irregular filter. They believe that one possible way of constantly developing and renewing culture is to create transitions between genres and to integrate exciting, novel experiments that spring to life on the borderlines between various fields of art. (Photo: © Péter Szabó Pettendi)
Judit Csatlós
Judit Csatlós graduated from the Department of Cultural Anthropology and Museology of Miskolc University. Between 2009 and 2012, she was a member of the management of the Studio of Young Artists’ Association. She has been working in Kassák Museum since 2011. Her fields of research include participatory art practices, the worker culture and the social reform in modernity. She regularly organizes exhibitions and other events. (Photo: © Dániel Németh)
Gabriella Csizek
Gabriella Csizek, curator. After completing her studies of art theory and cultural anthropology, she started working at the Hungarian Museum of Photography, Kecskemét and then as curator of the Hungarian House of Photography, Budapest. Her main field of interest is contemporary photography and the related interdisciplinary areas. She often contributes to publications as an editor or assists putting together the image material of exhibitions. Her name and work is associated with the exhibition and catalog series titled Present Cotinuous, as well as the Verzo Online Gallery. With Kata Balázs, she wrote the essay about Hungary in the third volume (from 1970s to 2000s) of The History of European Photography 1900-2000. In 2017, she curated the exhibition The Way They See. An Overview of Hungarian Photography, presented at the National Museum in Warsaw, Poland. (Photo: © Krisztina Erdei)
Attila Durak
Attila Durak, Turkish photographer and art director. Artistic Director of Fotoİstanbul Festival 2015, 2016, 2017. Co-founder and Curator of Fotoİstanbul Festival 2014. Founding director of İstanbul Photography Museum. Co-founder of Moon and Stars Project, a New York-based support foundation for Turkish artists. Best known for Ebru Project, a rare and pioneering photographic exploration of cultural diversity in Turkey, ebru is a book-exhibition project that was exhibited in 10 different countries, 31 exhibitions between 2007 – 2011, and as a result it reached a total of 300,000 people. Echoes of the Street is his second book that was published at 2011 and exhibited at 15 different Galleries. Curator of Bu Daha Başlangıç/This Is Only The Beginning exhibition, which portrayed events on the ground during the Gezi uprising. (Photo: © Attila Durak)
Thomas Dworzak
Thomas Dworzak was born in 1972 in Cham, Germany and decided early on to become a photographer. Whilst still in high school he traveled to Northern Ireland, Israel/Palestine, and the disintegrating Yugoslavia. Immediately after graduating he left Germany, always combining his travels and attempts to become a photographer with studying languages. In 1993, he ended up in Tbilisi, Georgia, staying until 1998. At this time he began to discover the Caucasus, it’s conflicts, people and culture which resulted in the publishing of his book, Kavkaz in 2010. He began to cover news, especially the Kosovo crisis in 1999. Based again in Moscow from 2000, Dworzak returned to Chechnya. His dramatic pictures of the Fall of Grozny were widely published and received several awards. Dworzak became a Magnum nominee in 2000 and a full member in 2004. In the years following the 9/11 attacks, he spent time covering the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as their impact on the US. During a several-months assignment in Afghanistan for The New Yorker, he discovered studio portraits of the Taliban; these images would form his book, Taliban. The images that were taken during his many assignments in Iraq, most of which were shot for TIME Magazine, were used to create his next book: M*A*S*H* IRAQ. From 2005 to 2008, as a TIME Magazine contract photographer, Dworzak covered many major international news stories including: Macedonia, Pakistan, Chechnya, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Lebanon, Haiti, Chad, C.A.R., the London Attacks, Ethiopia, Iran, US presidential campaigns, Hurricane Katrina, and the revolutions in the former Soviet republics of Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine. Thomas remained in Georgia after the 2008 war with Russia. This would lead to the Magnum Group project Georgian Spring, which was a starting point for a new, several-year-long engagement with the “New Georgia” under President M. Saakashvili. In 2012, Thomas photographed Nowrooz celebrations in Georgia. Dworzak spent 2009-2010 in Afghanistan, documenting the deployment of ISAF troops and their return home. In 2009, he also visited Iran to photograph Ashura. A National Geographic assignment on the Sochi Olympics became later the book Beyond Sochi. In 2013, a commission for the Bruges Museum led him to photograph the memory of WWI. This has since become an ongoing project concerning the legacy of the First World War around the world, which he plans to finish in 2018, 100 years after the end of the conflict. Always an avid collector, Thomas started gathering Instagram screenshots of a variety of subjects and has been grouping them together into ever-growing collections of Instagram artist scrapbooks. A final set of 20 of these books has been presented at the International Center of Photography, ICP, in New York from February 2017. Besides his personal stories, Thomas Dworzak continues to cover international stories, such as the DMZ in Korea, Cuba, Colombia, China, Liberia, Arab Spring in Egypt, the war in Libya and most recently the November 2015 Paris terror attacks, Pokemon Go! and the 2016 US and run up to the 2017 French Presidential elections. When covering the escalation of the refugee crisis in 2015 he conceived the idea of “Europe – a photographic guide for refugees” which was produced and distributed free of charge to migrants with the support of a Magnum Foundation Emergency Grant and AFAC in 2016. At the June 2017 70th AGM in New York Thomas Dworzak was elected President of Magnum. In the summer and autumn of 2017 Thomas, together with writer Julius Strauss, travelled in the footsteps of John Steinbeck and Robert Capa’s 1947 “A Russian Journal”. (Photo: © Sarah Statz)
Bálint Ferenczy
Bálint Ferenczy has an MA degree in History of Photography from Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London, as well as a degree in Art History and Arts & Cultural Management studied in both Hungary and the USA. The primary and secondary market experience he gained working at Sotheby’s Auction House, several galleries and while on the curatorial board of the József Pécsi Photography Grant, fills him with confidence to advise collectors about what their collections strategically need and artists on their career development. He is a regular consultant and researcher at the ArtGuideEast Magazine and at Műértő, the Hungarian art magazine focusing on the Central and Eastern European region. He is currently a part-time Ph.D. student at the Széchenyi István University, researching public art funding models. From 2017 he sits on the board of the Studio of Young Photographers, Hungary. Bálint is the founder of the Budapest-based Initio Fine Arts and the London-based CZY PROJECTS. (Photo: © Árpád Kurucz)
Gyenis Tibor
Tibor Gyenis, visual artist. He has been taking staged photographs since 1995. Created with optical processes and tricks borrowed from stagecraft, his early works resembling digitally generated images raised the question of mediality. His newer pieces use photography as a catalyst in bringing human relations, psychic processes and social events to the surface in order to understand them. With his photos and series, he reflects on various interpretational processes and systems in a critical and ironic manner. In 2003, Photoland Americas (Portland, USA) named him photographer of the year. In 2004 he received the Smohay Prize, and for two years from 2005 he was a professional director of the Studio of Young Photographers. In 2010 he received the Munkácsy Mihály Prize. Since 2004 he is the organizer of the Krapanj Creative Camp. His works have been featured in important Hungarian and foreign exhibitions and are included in several public collections. He has been teaching photography at the Kaposvár University since 2016. (Photo: © Réka Gregóczki)
Levente Hernádi
Levente Hernádi has been working as an editor for leading online magazines for eight years. While in college, he started working at HVG’s photo department at the beginning of 2010s. As hvg.hu’s photo editor, not only had he worked with the photos of photographers but also wth the social media distribution of the visual material. He carried on with this activity when he joined the online portral index.hu, where he has been working since 2012. Besides his editorial work, he actively photographs, working for business partners as well as longer term projects of his own.
Jean-Marc Lacabe
Jean-Marc Lacabe established ARPA (Action et Recherche Photographique en Aquitaine) in 1978. He has organized numerous exhibitions and was an art director of two festivals; he so contributed to the recognition of photography as an art form in France. Since 2001, he is director of Le Château d’Eau in Toulouse. His programme is aimed at introducing the public to photography and allowing them to develop their vision through exhibitions of well known photographers as well as emerging photographers and artists who use photography. (Photo: © Jean-Marc Lacabe)
Emilia van Lynden
Emilia van Lynden is the Artistic Director of Unseen, the leading platform for contemporary photography. Exclusively focusing on what’s new in the world of photography, Unseen provides a channel for up-and-coming talent to showcase their work, as well as presenting the newest work by established artists. Unseen is an all year round platform with physical events throughout the year and with the main event, Unseen Amsterdam, returning for its seventh edition in September 2018. Additionally Emilia is also Editor-in-Chief of the annual publication, Unseen Magazine founded in 2014. Van Lynden among other things is sourcing artistic talent as well as galleries, collectives and projects that have a rich programme committed to supporting young artists. (Photo: © Sophie Wright)
Emese Mucsi
Emese Mucsi graduated from the Faculty of Contemporary Art Theory and Curatorial Studies at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in 2013, and from the Faculty of Hungarian Literature and Linguistics at the University of Szeged in 2017. Her art critiques, essays, and interviews have been published in various art journals since 2011. Since 2013, she has been involved in organizing contemporary art exhibitions as a freelance curator. In March 2014, she became the editor-in-chief of Artmagazin Online (artmagazin.hu). She has been a board member of the Hungarian Section of AICA (International Association of Art Critics) since 2016. She has been a curator at Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center since 2018. (Photo: © Bognár Benedek, Simon Zsuzsanna)
Hajnalka Somogyi
Since 2014, Hajnalka Somogyi has worked as leader and co-curator of OFF-Biennale Budapest, the largest civil, state-free international art project in Hungary that is based on Somogyi’s initiative. In 2013-2014, she was editor of artmagazin.hu. Between 2009-2012 she was curator at Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art, Budapest and between 2001-2006 at Trafo – House of Contemporary Arts, Budapest. She co-founded the independent art initiatives Dinamo and Impex, both in Budapest. She holds a Diploma in Art History from ELTE Budapest, and a Master’s degree from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, NY. Curatorial projects include Hide and Seek (OFF-Biennale Budapest 2017 – as member of the curatorial board), Check Your Head! (OFF-Biennale Budapest 2015 – as member of the curatorial board), Art Has No Alternative (transit.sk, Bratislava, 2015), Les statues meurent aussi (with artist István Csákány, Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, 2014), Yona Friedman: Architecture without building (with Nikolett Erőss, Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art, Budapest, 2011-2012), The Science of Imagination (Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art, Budapest, 2010), and Gets Under the Skin (Storefront for Art and Architecture, NYC; Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, 2009; and Musee d’art contemporain de Montreal, 2010). (Photo: © Csaba Aknay)
Sebastian Vaida
Sebastian Vaida, director of Photo Romania. “I’ve always liked photography, even if it sounds like a cliché. The first photos I took without knowing how to do so, I did without any attention to framing, subject or composition. After a while, I began to understand what is happening in the space between me as a photographer and the subject I was photographing. Many years later I also understood why I like to photograph: so that I can communicate a message, an emotion, a concept. For the last fifteen years I’ve been in the photography area with different projects, either as a photographer, a trainer or a coordinator. I coordinated an online photography magazine, dozens of workshops and most important, with a dedicated team, a photography festival, Photo Romania festival.” (Photo: © Constantin Sălăgean)
Patrick Waterhouse
Patrick Waterhouse is an artist whose work spans photography, drawing, slow journalism, graphic design, sculpture and many other disciplines. His practice involves in-depth research, often working in communities and collaborating with other artists, researchers and writers. Waterhouse’s work has been exhibited internationally in institutions including The Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao (2016) National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C (2015) The Photographers’ Gallery, London (2015) The National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh (2014) FotoMuseum Antwerpen (2014) Le Bal, Paris (2014) Biennale de Lubumbashi, DR Congo (2013) The International Center of Photography Triennial, New York (2013) Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool (2012) The Museum für Gestaltung, Zürich (2011) and South African National Gallery, Cape Town (2010). His work is held in major public and private collections including Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York, The National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C and The Walther Collection, Neu-Ulm, Germany. Awards include the Discovery Award at Rencontres de la Photographie, Arles in 2011 and the Deutsche Borse Photography Prize in 2015 for Ponte City (with Mikhael Subotzky). In 2011 Waterhouse became Editor-in-chief of Colors magazine, creating a new editorial direction (The Survival Guides) and building a global team of photographers, designers, editors, writers, artists, researchers and bloggers. The Survival guide series consists of 10 printed issues, with touring exhibitions and workshops. (Photo: © Rebecca Simpson)