Who We Are | Photographs about artists

It was in 1916 that Ala­dár Szé­kely pub­lis­hed his il­lustri­o­us album Writers and Ar­tists – the first of its kind – with a fo­re­word by the poet Endre Ady. A few lines from Ady’s int­ro­duc­ti­on: “Here each li­ter­ary and ar­tis­tic type has their own agg­ri­eved and sad litt­le cong­re­ga­ti­on of mafia and their own litt­le min­e­field. My fri­end Ala­dár Szé­kely is for­tu­na­te, the­re­fo­re, to have stood in for li­te­ra­tu­re with good tho­ughts and no th­reats of sig­ni­fi­cant harm. The pub­lic needs to see most of today’s li­ter­ary and ar­tis­tic ce­leb­ri­ti­es, of whom they can­not re­ce­ive an hon­est writ­ten pic­tu­re; but be­hold, they re­ce­ive ins­tead a fa­ith­ful, po­wer­ful photo-pic­tu­re, or (with an apt wordplay) pic­tu­re-typew­riting. I am glad that this album is being pub­lis­hed, and I am happy that it is Ala­dár Szé­kely who is now tel­l­ing us – even th­ro­ugh our ar­bit­rary and point­less poses – who we are.” It is from these lines that we have bor­ro­wed the title of the ex­hi­bit­ion. Today’s art scene, al­be­it dif­fe­rently, still has its ‘glo­omy cong­re­ga­tions’ of cli­ques and its ‘min­e­fields’. But today, if a good pho­to­gra­p­her – or coll­ec­tor and pub­lis­her of pho­to­gra­phs – casts their eyes to the noble ar­tis­tic com­mu­nity as respect­fully and sen­sit­i­vely as the ma­s­ter Szé­kely, they will for­get the poses and land­mi­nes and re­turn the ar­tist’s gaze. Yes, pho­to­gra­phs are still taken this way, by the best, those who take pic­tu­res of the pic­tu­re ma­kers.

Ar­tists pho­to­gra­phed. In the pho­to­gra­p­her’s stu­dio, in their own stu­dios, among their fa­mi­li­es, at art events, at ex­hi­bit­ion ope­nings. The ex­hi­bit­ion’s venue is Kun­sthal­le Bu­da­pest, which for 125 years has borne on its fa­ca­de the inscript­ion: ‘For Hun­ga­ri­an Art’; and the oc­cas­ion is its 125^th an­ni­ver­sary. A fitt­ing ju­bi­lee theme, yet one that is hin­de­red by the lack of basic re­se­arch. We are aware that cert­ain pho­to­gra­p­hers took many pic­tu­res of this kind, but only frag­ments of their oeuvres can be found in pub­lic coll­ec­tions, if at all. Where ot­hers are con­cer­ned, we may know that their oeuvres inc­lu­ded a substan­ti­al port­ra­it coll­ec­ti­on but there is no chance of their works end­ing up in a pub­lic coll­ec­ti­on. The list of pho­to­gra­phed ar­tists is also ran­dom. This ex­hi­bit­ion does not set out to show an ex­haus­tive and comp­le­te or ca­no­ni­cal se­lec­ti­on of im­por­tant Hun­ga­ri­an ar­tists; be­ca­u­se the pho­to­gra­p­her’s cho­i­ce of theme is sub­jec­tive: It de­pends on the as­sign­ment, per­so­nal con­tacts, op­por­tuni­ti­es.

The back­bone of the Who We Are ex­hi­bit­ion con­sists of the port­fo­li­os of a few im­por­tant pho­to­gra­p­hers, rang­ing ch­ro­no­log­i­cally from the early be­g­in­nings; that is, Ala­dár Szé­kely, to the pre­sent day. We are also sho­wing some self-port­ra­its and stu­dio in­te­ri­ors, re­ve­aling how the ar­tists see them­sel­ves and their wor­king en­vi­ron­ment, so the paint­ings and gra­phics seem to en­gage in a dia­lo­gue with the pho­to­gra­p­hers’ port­ra­its. We have also turned up a se­lec­ti­on of do­cu­ments re­lat­ing to pho­to­gra­ph coll­ec­ting, the re­la­ti­onship with sto­ry­tel­l­ing, ar­tis­tic events re­cor­ded only in pho­to­gra­phs, fri­endsh­ips and sha­red mem­ori­es, inc­lu­ding some from Kun­sthal­le’s own ar­chi­ves that pre­ser­ve me­men­tos of the dis­tant and re­cent past.

Lajos Er­dé­lyi, Ká­roly Escher, Ká­roly Gink, Ká­roly Kof­fán, Olga Máté, Dénes Rónai, Ala­dár Szé­kely, Ist­vánTóth, Ele­mér Vat­tay, Lajos Cson­tó, Gyula Czim­bal, Mik­lós Déri, Évi Fá­bi­án, Péter Ja­nesch, Kál­mán Kecs­ke­mé­ti , Lász­lóLu­go­si Lugo, At­ti­la Pác­ser, Illés Sar­kan­tyu, Mik­lós Su­lyok, Lenke Szi­lá­gyi 

cura­tor: And­rás Bán 

as­sis­tant cura­tor: Ma­ri­an­na Mayer