Máté Dobokay: Ag

Visiting is free of charge
May 28, 2019 – July 01, 2019
Every day 11 am – 7 pm
Closed on public holidays.
Capa Center – Project Room
Curator: Judit Gellér

The previous centuries had seen a myriad of experimentation aiming to achieve the photographic imaging of reality. The light sensitivity of silver halides had already been discovered before the invention of photography, and the experimentation with the various photographic processes eventually led to the possibility of the quick creation of reproducible photographs. Ag. The chemical symbol of silver. Máté Dobokay’s exhibition showcases the creative process in which the author experiments both as a chemist and a philosopher with the dismantling of the photographic image into its elemental components, while looking into questions related to transfering knowledge and providing feedback.

The painstaking, experimental attitude that characterizes the creative method of the artist is aimed at discovering and exposing the most essential inner structure of the medium. The exhibition titled Ag tackles questions related to the medium as well as to the relationship between creation and education. The teacher presenting the trade, the knowledge, and the technical information is browsing the used materials forsaken by the students. Thus, the basic motifs of the exhibition are made up of items that had been discarded, left behind by the students in the workshop and the photo lab: used fixer, test strips, and photo paper provide the basis for the artworks.

The gesture of experimentation, appropriation, transformation, and recycling is simultaneously present both in the behind-the-scenes works exposing the creative processes, as well as the resulting artworks themselves. We can observe the gradation that is generated when developing the discarded, improperly stored, light-struck photo paper. We can see tiny objects, slightly reflective surfaces set on the edges of petri dishes, globes and glasses, figures, marbled paper, which are all formed from the silver collected from the used fixer via zinc plates or electrolysis.

Máté Dobokay’s photographic experimentation does not result in photographic images. The artworks evoke the processes of the secret and intricate science of alchemy, looking for the philosopher’s stone suitable for turning base metals into precious metals, achieving immortality, and healing physical anguish. Dobokay creates unique and unreproducible, abstract, picturesque images and objects, delineating all the different shades of the shiny grey of silver on the various media. (Gellér Judit, curator)

Máté Dobokay was born in Pécs, Hungary in 1988. He studied at Pécs University of Science and he completed the Photography BA program of Kaposvár University. His work has been recognized with several awards and grants: In 2015–2016, he received the Fellowship of the Hungarian Republic (Köztársasági Ösztöndíj); in 2015,, he was a semi-finalist at the Leopold Bloom Art Award; and in 2017, at the Esterházy Art Award. In 2014, he was a member of the winning team at the OFF_Festival in Bratislava, and he was nominated for the Lucien Hervé and Rodolf Hervé Award. In 2018, he was one of the two winners of the first MODEM Award in Debrecen. Since 2012, he has been regularly showcasing his work in venues like the Ludwig Museum, the Vasarely Musem, the MODEM, or the New Budapest Gallery, and also as a participant in numerous exhibitions in Europe. He was the youngest author of the New York exhibition titled IMPACT: Abstraction & Experiment in Hungarian Photography. Between 2014–2017, he was a member, and from 2015–2017 an executive member of the Studio of Young Photographers (FFS). Since 2015, he has been a member of the Studio of Young Artists Association (FKSE). He lives and works in Budapest, and he is represented by acb Gallery.