As a true intellectual workshop it provides opportunity to various trends in photography for
introducing themselves. Its exhibitory activities are enhanced by professional programs: meetings
of visitors and artist, book-presentations, lectures, screenings, conferences, informal talks. Its
events target people of all ages interested in photography: more than 110 year-old studio-house
offers an exceptional opportunity for museum-pedagogical classes. There are events especially
organized for professional photographers: portfolio-reviews and master-classes. Mai Manó House's
educational activity propagates photographing and the art of photography in an ever widening
circle.
Presentation of LUCIA NIMCOVÁ (Slovakia)
at 7 pm on 20th May, Thursday
in the Daylight Studio of Hungarian House of Photography – Mai Manó House
Nimcová is the resident photograher in Budapest of the Artist-inn-residence program in 2010, http://www.ph-budapest.com/index.html
The lecture is in English and free to attend
Since 2000 I was researching different approaches to reality in Eastern Europe. I wanted to show how past influences presence. The history of Eastern Europe is changing all the time, depending on political structures. In my view, communism has never finished, it has just transformed into something else. During normalization period people were taught to be passive, I couldn't stay without opinion, I wanted to visualize this process of transformation. For that purpose I combine found archival photographs and contemporary images.
DOUBLE CODING
Forms part of a series of projects in which the artist intuitively and rigorously investigates the typologies, fictions and lived realities of the “new society” being formed under and resulting from a communist regime. Nimcova takes footage from 40 films made by Slovak directors between 1968 and 1989 under an era of intense censorship when a group of censors would be commissioned to oversee each stage of filmic production. In many cases, some films were screened for the public and only to have it censored years later. This meant that the same film seen by one audience might be completely different in content for the next viewers. The directors of the films Nimcova found in the Slovak Film Archives had to work around the complex, often illogical, parameters set by these censors usually in contexts at the peripheries of major cities, where they developed a sophisticated visual language of embedded, yet fleeting moments of political commentary.
LEFTOVERS
After studying official life in my hometown I decided to look through private family pictures. Marian Kusik created very sensitive, usually not staged, images of everyday life and family celebrations of the baby-boom generation during the period of normalisation. Non-historical private footage thus becomes historic evidence of a certain mood.
The selection was made out of images in Marian’s massive archive marked “leftovers”. They are “not right” for all sorts of reasons, be it due to emotions and sensibilities or technical and formal flaws. The moment you don’t have the right so-called “exhibition” moment, or even worse, when the children are assembled in some absurd formation by their parents with everything looking ship shape, the child becomes but an object for the photographer to document.
Images are presented within installation; on found/borrowed furniture with ‘socialist alike look’ table clothes.
UNOFFICIAL
I spent two years doing in-depth research into the history of my birthplace, the town of Humenn in eastern Slovakia, combining the official archives as well as pictures made by amateur photographers with my own images, commenting on normalization and its contemporary consequences.
(“Normalization” was an ideological program of social and political integration in Czechoslovakia following 1968.)
Lucia Nimcová
CHECK IN BUDAPEST
a series of curatorial research programs, public presentations & round tables
organized by ACAX | Agency for Contemporary Art Exchange
ACAX cordially invites you to the lecture of Guillaume Piens (Director of Paris Photo) and Véronique Prugnaud (Exhibitor Relations Manager of Paris Photo)
Guillaume Piens and Veronique Prugnaud will hold a presentation on Paris Photo - the world's leading photography fair. In their lecture they will primarily focus on the structure, the curatorial aspects and policies of Paris Photo.
Date: 16 March 2010 (Tuesday), 6 p.m.
Place: Hungarian House of Photography - Mai Manó House (1065 Budapest, Nagymező utca 20.)
The lecture will be held in English. All are welcome!
Annual photography fair Paris Photo will hold its 2010 edition from November 18th to the 21st. Over one hundred international galleries and publishers present a panorama of the finest examples of photographic expression from the 19th century to the present.
Paris Photo also casts light on an emerging international scene, reveals new talent through awards and competitions and offers a rich programme of events and encounters.
The 14th Paris Photo edition coincides with the biennial “Mois de la Photo”, a month-long photographic event, turning the city into the photography capital of the world in November.
Paris Photo - a few figures:
- A 3,000-square-metre showcase under the prestigious Louvre Pyramid
- 40,000 visitors in 5 days, 30% of them international
- 117 exhibitors – galleries, publishers and magazines - from 23 countries
- 115 public signing sessions by photographers
- Over 800 international artists represented
This year’s special thematic section will focus on Central Europe, notably highlighting Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.
Photography is one of Central Europe's richest forms of artistic expression. From the very beginning of the 20th century, Bratislava, Budapest, Prague, Ljubljana and Warsaw were home to an intellectual avant-garde promoting a new vision of photography. Many from these cities revolutionized the history of photography, from André Kertész and Moholy-Nagy to František Drtikol, Josef Sudek, Brassaď and Robert Capa.
Co-director of the Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers, art critic and exhibition curator Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez heads the Spotlight on Central Europe, which has four components. The General Section evokes major historical, contemporary and avant-garde figures, the Central Exhibition highlights a photography collection, the Statement section presents emerging talents and the Project Room offers a programme of videos.
In addition, a series of lectures presented in partnership with the Hungarian, Polish, Czech and Slovak Institutes and the Slovenian Embassy in Paris gives the public a closer look at the featured countries' photography scenes.
Futher information about Paris Photo: www.parisphoto.fr
Check in Budapest
The curatorial visitor program Check in Budapest is a series of events initiated by ACAX | Agency for Contemporary Art Exchange in the autumn of 2008. So far more than 40 curators and art critics participated in the program. The different editions of Check in Budapest consist out of two main activities: a curatorial research, completed by public presentations and panel discussions. In order to give an extensive insight into the Hungarian art scene and the places of art production, the curatorial research program includes tours to different galleries and museums, as well as meetings with artists, curators and key cultural producers. In the public lecture the visiting professionals present their work and current fields of interest and share their ideas with each other in a public debate.
The program aims to establish and maintain channels of effective and continuous professional communication among the actors of the Hungarian and international art scene, as well as to promote and support the international appearance and integration of Hungarian artists.
http://www.acax.hu/index.php?pageid=154
The special photography edition of Check in Budapest is supported by the National Cultural Fund (of Hungary).
ACAX operates in the framework of the Ludwig Museum–Museum of Contemporary Art
Contact:
ACAX | Nemzetközi Kortárs Képzőművészeti Iroda
ACAX | Agency for Contemporary Art Exchange
1065 Budapest, Nagymező utca 8. (kaputelefon 101, bejárat a társasház lépcsőháza felől)
Tel: + 36 1 501 4111
Fax: + 36 1 501 4112
E-mail: info@acax.hu
Web: www.acax.hu
CHECK IN BUDAPEST
a series of curatorial research programs, public presentations & round tables
organized by ACAX | Agency for Contemporary Art Exchange
The next editions of Check in Budapest will focus on contemporary photography.
ACAX cordially invites you to the lecture of William Ewing (director and curator of the Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne):
Edward Steichen, The First Modern Fashion Photographer
Date: 3 February 2010 (Wednesday), 6 p.m.
Location: Magyar Fotográfusok Háza - Mai Manó Ház (1065 Budapest, Nagymező utca 20.)
The lecture will be held in English. All are welcome!
William Ewing is a curator and author with a long string of exhibitions and publications to his credit. His exhibitions have been shown at major institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the International Center of Photography, New York; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; The Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; the Centre Pompidou and the Jeu de Paume Paris; the Museo Nacional Reina Sophia, Madrid; the International Center for Photography, Milan; the Kunstmuseum, Wolfsburg; the Barbican Art Gallery, the Serpentine Gallery and the Hayward Gallery, London; the Kunsthaus, Zurich.
One of his major interest is emerging talents, and he has co-curated two versions of reGeneration: 50 photographers of tomorrow (2005 – 2010), shows which have a distinct influence on the field.
He has published more than twenty publications including The Body (1994); The Face: The New Photographic Portrait (2006); Ray K. Metzker: Light Lines (2008) and has co-authored Edward Steichen; Lives in Photography (2007) and Edward Steichen: In High Fashion, 1923-1937(2008-9).
Mr Ewing was Director of Exhibitions at the International Center of Photography, New York, between 1977 and 1984. In 1996 he was appointed Director of the Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland, where he remains today. Since 1998 he has been teaching the history and analysis of photography at the University of Geneva.
http://www.elysee.ch/
Check in Budapest
The curatorial visitor program Check in Budapest is a series of events initiated by ACAX | Agency for Contemporary Art Exchange in the autumn of 2008. So far more than 40 curators and art critics participated in the program. The different editions of Check in Budapest consist out of two main activities: a curatorial research, completed by public presentations and panel discussions. In order to give an extensive insight into the Hungarian art scene and the places of art production, the curatorial research program includes tours to different galleries and museums, as well as meetings with artists, curators and key cultural producers. In the public lecture the visiting professionals present their work and current fields of interest and share their ideas with each other in a public debate.
The program aims to establish and maintain channels of effective and continuous professional communication among the actors of the Hungarian and international art scene, as well as to promote and support the international appearance and integration of Hungarian artists.
http://www.acax.hu/index.php?pageid=154
The special photography edition of Check in Budapest is supported by the National Cultural Fund (of Hungary).
ACAX operates in the framework of the Ludwig Museum–Museum of Contemporary Art
Contact:
ACAX | Nemzetközi Kortárs Képzőművészeti Iroda
ACAX | Agency for Contemporary Art Exchange
1065 Budapest, Nagymező utca 8. (kaputelefon 101, bejárat a társasház lépcsőháza felől)
Tel: + 36 1 501 4111
Fax: + 36 1 501 4112
E-mail: info@acax.hu
Web: www.acax.hu
