Heves megyei aprónyomtatványok 8/I
fine art, the actual subject of our exhibition, could never have been born. Our primary aim is to register new phenomena of the 70ies — but while we are assessing their novelty, at the same time we have to admit that earlier generations of artists have also relied upon the camera among their devices. By representing at least some of their works we intend to point out the continuity between early and present efforts. Anyway, the theoretical definition of "photo/art" is no easy task. The combination of words refers to the creative usage of photo by artists, but not exclusively since among participants there are some who can be considered professional photographers, and traditional photographic art also prefers to call its activity artistic. However, we have to draw the line definitely between the latter and ourselves, or rather between ourselves and that kind of photographic art which aims at grasping of "stolen moments of life", the representation of the view of reality condensed through subjective emotions, and wishes to affect through the emotional experience of the spectator with a "beautiful" or "interesting" photograph acquired this way. The new photo usage fixes a prearranged view or shows the documents of a definite mental conception, and usually avoids surface beauty of an emotional effect. In this respect, photograph is only "used", indeed, in some cases it is only present in one phase of the creative process and it is already absent in the finished work in front of the spectator. It sets out from the medium character of photography (documentary-reproductive function, multiplicabi- lity etc.) and sometimes this is even the only subject of interest, while in optimal cases it offers a suggestion for changing this. The formation of the borderland of photo/art is certainly conditioned upon the hypothesis, that fine art consider not only traditional media but in principle any kind of media usable — on the other hand, this kind of photo usage does not leave orthodox photographic art uneffected, either. (International photo exhibitions recently usually accept media! works as "experimental" or "avantgarde" trends.) It is no small satisfaction for us that recent big exhibitions and anthologies like "Art and Photography", "Fotográfia come arte", "Medium Fotografie", "Creative Photography" etc. or special photography numbers of great international magazines (Studio International, flash art, L'Art vivant, Kunstwerk etc.) rarely neglect the role of Hungarians in starting this process. The most important among them is MOHOLY-NAGY who outlined the new possibilities of shaping by light from the early 20ies on with his photograms, "photoplastics", objective photograph and theoretic writings in a technicist- socialist society envisioned by him. It is remarkable that he, who considered cultivation of painting, plastic art, object creation and film equally important regarded photography not a distinguished but a specific medium and it is precisely this reason why he managed to renew this artistic form basically. In his photograms produced without a camera for example - a genre invented by Christian Schad, Man Ray and Lissicky and himself — he created abstract compositions but the forms of which were determined exclusively by the characteristics of light and light-sensitive paper. Lajos
