András Nagy is a cinematographer who worked on several significant Hungarian films. His previously unseen photographs are about relief, and the inner vision that is necessary to create precise compositions even of the most surprising associations, seemingly accidental expositions. His themes are observations, quotidian (beauty) experiences, such as dawn, the glimpse of a cyclist, the lights on an object lasting only for seconds, or the counter of a bar. Every glance is a suprise: this recognition proves the artist’s unique (film-maker’s) vision, and we feel like we are there too, and the story continues.
The artist András Ravasz examines the combination of images and texts that he places on András Nagy’s selected pictures and his own photos. He opens our eyes to the significance of the minutiae of our everyday environment and how they show our relation to the present and the future. He asks what has value, what the attainable purpose is, and how all these relate to technology, the urban and natural environment, or the ordinary commodities of technological advance. His photo-manipulations have simple motifs and often textual supplements that gain new meanings in this context and lead us to stop and reflect.
Their joint series combine these two interests. András Ravasz added short messages, sentences to András Nagy’s photos taken in New York, and they placed them on the pictures together. These comments on social and economical problems appear sometimes hidden, sometimes in the foreground of the compositions. The photos stress the visually forceful details, while the words, as fragments, slogans, cast light upon the striking problems that define our world.
The title of the exhibition also refers to this: if only the wise words provided a solution to that which is so difficult to surmount because of its global complexity. An additional interest of the exhibition is the unusual materiality of the photos, that were created with the special printing technology called Orion print.
Zsolt Petrányi