The World and I: Keep Young and Beautiful

Apr 5, 2012

Keep Young and Beautiful

If you have been near Budapest recently, you might have come across this picture (taken from here), which advertises the new temporary exhibition housed by the Museum of Fine Arts, called The Birth of Art Photography, which opened on March 30. And this was the main destination of our day out today.
The exhibition focuses on the period between 1889 and 1929, from "pictorialism" to so-called "modern photography." At the beginning of its history, photography struggled to be acknowledged as a form of art, i.e. on equal terms with painting. They wanted to show that taking a photo is not a simple mechanism which doesn't require an artist. Therefore, they invented all kinds of new techniques, varying the material which preserved the image, e.g. rubber and I don't know what. Personally, I'm not familiar with this field, but the descriptions in the show rooms made sense and were interesting even for lay people like me. The exhibition follows the transition from this initial period of imitating painting to photography becoming an independent form of art in its own right.
According to the museum's website more than 200 pictures are exhibited, which have been taken by artists from all over Europe and the United States. The name Stieglitz I think would ring a bell as he was one of the most prominent figures in American photography, and he also happened to be the topic of a few classes in the course titled Literature and the Arts in New York in the 1910s and 1920s, which was one of the optional seminars I visited at the uni. Actually, I was more interested in the work of his wife, Georgia O'Keeffe, which I found very feminine and impressive.
Other important photographers exhibited include Edward Steichen (whose famous picture of actress Gloria Swanson you can see above), Tina Modotti, Constant Puyo, Gertrude Käsebier, Man Ray, and Rudolf Koppitz (though I cannot tell for sure their importance from a professional point of view). Internationally acknowledged Hungarian photographers were also represented, such as André Kertész, József Pécsi, Olga Máté, László Moholy-Nagy, and Angelo, which made me proud of being a Hungarian (after a long time of wanting to keep my identity secret). It was also good to see women among the artists, and there was a homosexual photographer called Wilhelm Gloeden, whose photos I really liked. There were brief biographies as well, and some of them were quite interesting. There was a French guy for example, who got his first camera when he was only six, and his parents bought him the latest model every one or two years. His favourite themes included motor races and pictures of the elite.
The area devoted to this exhibition was relatively big. We spent about two hours walking there, which is a bit longer than our average, and we had read all the captions. It's a pity there wasn't a booklet about the artists. I started to find favourite pictures and tried to remember the names of the photographers, but after a while I gave up. As I said I'm not familiar with this field, so the pictures I liked best were selected based on my subjective judgement. In general what I like in a picture is when it captures beauty, especially that of the human body or a face. Apples and vases are not for me, not to mention furnaces and chimneys. There were some taken of buildings and structures I liked, though. This exhibition made me realize once again how little I know of the world, not to mention the world of photography. Before that I had visited only two photo exhibitions, the one about Robert Capa in Ludwig Museum, Budapest and one by Annie Leibovitz in the Hundetwasser Musuem, when we were in Wien a few years ago. The current exhibition was quite comprehensive and versatile, yet enjoyable for lay people as well. I can add nothing more but go and see it, it is indeed worth it, though the prices in the souvenir shop had definitely been designed for wealthy tourists.
Below you will find a selection of my favorites.