Photosuprematists

Looking into the fine arts angled poetics of Hungarian contemporary photography, there is a particularly interesting direction that so far has not really been comprehended, which on the one hand gathers its roots from painting (fine art), on the other from conceptual photography. In other words, it stems from two areas that 40 years ago widely excluded each other. Furthermore, their entities were defined against one another, given that conceptual art was in contrast with painting as far as the mid-seventies, until the appearance of primary and elemental painting. Short and long-term practitioners of grass-root conceptual photography could be recognised nationally but at the same time hardly any could be found practising language-oriented reductionist painting, unless we bargain for a few radical but overdue so-called informel achievements.

My initial starting-point is that if the Venice Biennale is fundamentally a fine arts event, then to display an internationally accurate section of Hungarian contemporary photography under its canopy, we basically need to draw from works of creators with a fine arts approach. Namely such artists’ opus whose poetic and linguistic efforts not only stood by as a display panel, nominal parallel or compulsory curriculum of historical experience but obtained knowledge and enhanced sensitivity.

The concept demonstrated here was inspired by the apropos of a significant event in art history, namely the centennial of Suprematism. Although the first Suprematist manifesto was published in 1915, two years prior to that Kazimir Malevich had created the first series of paintings denying objective representations; therefore, historiography considers 1913 the birth year of this revolutionary, high-impact trend. Consequently for me Suprematism principally proves to be a decisively important measure on the level of sensitivity and being far removed from the material world, not so much through the semiology based on geometrical shapes.

I assembled a group of these particular representatives of Hungarian contemporary photography according to this principal aspect. I approached such kindred spirits whose work I have been following for a while, in regard to the similarity of their sensibility. Malevich’s idea of pure sensibility is vigorously present in all three authors; however, it manifests itself on slightly different levels with regards to linguistic articulation. But in fact these differences between stages demonstrate most truly to the all-time actuality of pristine human ambitions to be launched towards ethereal heights and divine spheres.

Károly Minyó Szert, who specifies himself as a visual artist and freehand photographer, individually developed a technical-lingual process that manifests itself on a strange border-land, since it combines manual painting and mechanically associated photography. The artist coats the canvas with paint in a traditional way, and once it dries he proceeds to spread it with light-sensitive emulsion. At last he covers it with negative cut film and exposes it to light. On bright areas painted freely with sweeping gestures identifiable objects of the material world or the self-seeking human stumbling around in metaphorical mist emerges in patches as illumination visions. Every one of his pictures is a unique panel painting created by manually coating emulsion and using conventional analogue lab techniques. As part of his open publicly held photo-performances, Minyó, while pedalling a bike in a darkened showroom, illuminates the cut film fixed on the previously exposed canvas with the bike’s lamp, then spreads developer on the surface. During his process the picture gets developed in front of the eyes of the spectator, emphatically demonstrating the gestured power of manual development. My concept is that the artist demonstrates bicycle-photography in public twice a day on the first week during the Biennale. Tibor Szemző creates music for the action that simultaneously serves as the audio background for the exhibition, holding a similar status in quality to the exhibited works.

Whilst a few elements of the anthropocentric world can be recognized as slight hints in Károly Minyó Szert’s creations and earth-like limitations restrict; on the other hand, Anikó Robicz’s photos completely take off towards a geometrical-abstract domain, which not only at the level of sensibility but also in form evokes Suprematist language. We move in a strictly defined world of symbols but firstly we know nothing of the origins of these shapes. These signs seem constructed and manipulated but they are not. Robicz consistently refuses to employ external interferences; the photos are pure snapshots, manifesting their strange vision and beauty solely in themselves. Nobody would think that the photographer travelling through metropolises of the world would capture thrilling details of the microworld in hidden corners of contemporary geometrical architecture. She demonstrates a completely unique and original vision that not only has no comparison in Hungarian contemporary photography, but its historical role models can be explored in distant relations somewhere in Bauhaus’ aesthetics.

My personal photo works consisting of false pictures taken by the telephotograph fully set aside the camera as a device, regarding that it’s a once used telecommunication instrument. The collection of about 200 unique pieces was accumulated in the eighties; a smaller selection was on display for first time in 2011 in the Hungarian House of Photography – Mai Manó House. During the exhibition I exemplified step by step how a recognisable, materially bound world falls apart and how these pieces gradually become more and more unrecognisable, until they eventually settle to nothingness. The last fragments in the series are finalised in monochrome, in such greyish and black squares that echo to the zero point of the new language – the pure sensibility – that is born due to the unintentional mistakes of the mechanical language of mass communication. Telephotographs caught in the act of the highest level of Suprematist sensibility, I wish to exhibit in large size digital canvas prints.

I would like to emphasise that the works in question do not relate to the Suprematist tradition as a systematic pattern, that is to say they do not desire to illustrate Malevich’s doctrine. The Suprematist attitude is already present in the creations, as a result of a long process of self-development behind which there is a genuine human-creative sensibility. The project simply enhances the unique historical moment, confirming, amongst the broadest international environment, the high standards and the quality of Hungarian contemporary photography that, at all times, is capable of adding own values to the actual artistic productions in an up-to-date manner.

Bálint Szombathy

Curator:
Bálint Szombathy, multimedia artist

Artists:
Károly Minyó Szert, Anikó Robitz, Bálint Szombathy

The exhibition is open to the public:
27/01/2014  – 14/03/2014