Turn (verb). Moving an object or body part around a virtual or actual axis so that another side, page, part gets into the previous or given direction. (E.g. Turning the page in a book to present a new one.) Turn (figuratively). Changing, exchanging a state into something else, directing it to something else. (E.g. Turning the weapons against the oppressors.)
Péter Puklus is a turner. He rotates his models, objects, mock-ups, sculptures in front of the camera. He processes time and history backward, turning them upside down. His visual metaphors filled with symbolic, art historical allusions could be regarded as subjective, conceptual relations of history. The different interpretations of the reduced and at the same time pure visual world, as well as the single allegorical images, may originate in many aspects from the various applications of the genres to the studying of the different object compilations, while the series as a whole appears as a better-delineated entity.
He chooses an eternal topic, love, as his trope, and specifically a kind of manly perspective within that, then he sets off to uncover the history of the 20th century starting from the present. The line of images leads us through the struggles of the previous long, stirring, and many times sad century in four larger units (The Beginning of Hope, Unsafe to Dance, Bigger. Faster. Higher., Life is techno). The lyrical and fragmented storytelling reveals the historical events related with great intimacy using recurring motives placed into different contexts, different light.
Rereading, change of pace, turning everything into present tense – if we wanted to find one keyword for the series of Péter Puklus titled The Epic Love Story of a Warrior, and the book covering its photographs, the word “turn” would definitely be among the candidates.
Judit Gellér