Impact: Abstraction & Experiment in Hungarian Photography

05.10-06.18| Hours: 12 – 7pm
@ Alma Gallery | 625 W. 27th Street, New York

includes 21 modern and contemporary artists. It juxtaposes Moholy-Nagy’s photograms and photo- collages with early examples by György Kepes and Tihamér Gyarmathy (1915-2005), as well as the novel approaches of Dezső Szabó and Balázs Sprenc. Moholy-Nagy’s fascination with new media is evident is his remarkable color film, “Light Machine” (1941), and it is echoed in Theodor Kraynik’s “Video Luminar” (1967), a pioneering video that will premier at Alma following its recent restoration. Equally inventive is Monochrome Clack’s eponymous installation, which features projection over a mosaic of modified black-and- white photographs, with a music mix by by Kinga Kovács a.k.a. DJ Sanyi.

Ádám Magyar uses a scanner as a camera, taking radically elongated photographs of commuters in trains. Szacsva y Pál photographs projections onto objects, blurring the real and the represented. József Hajdú made contact prints from thick, plastic, emulsion-coated X-Ray sheets, which sound technicians at Hungarian Radio re-used to cut records, due to the shortage of material in Hungary during the 1930s. Gábor Kerekes’s view of photography, as an alchemical juncture between art and science, led him to explore a wide variety of techniques and subjects, including his drone’s-eye- view anthracotypes of Roswell and Secret Area 51, places where fact and fiction, present and future, seem to meld.

The exhibition, curated by Gary van Wyk, is presented by AlmaOnDobbin, the Consulate General of Hungary, and Balassi Insitute / Hungarian Cultural Center, and form part of Modernity X Hungary—A Festival of Hungarian Modernism in New York. Lenders include the Hungarian Museum of Photography, Moholy-Nagy University (MOME), the Kepes Institute in Eger, leading Hungarian galleries, collectors in Hungary and the United States, and Hungarian artists in several countries. Alma’s coordinating partner in Hungary is Art Market Budapest, Eastern Europe’s leading contemporary art event that hosts Art Photo Budapest, one of Europe’s major international photo fairs.

The exhibition highlights both László Moholy-Nagy’s significance among the many photographic masters from Hungary, and ongoing excellence and innovation in contemporary photography. Iconic images by Brassaï, Robert Capa, György Kepes, André Kertész, Martin Munkácsi, and Imre Kinszki are juxtaposed with striking art photography dating from the Soviet-dominated 1960s to the present.

Vernissage: May 7, 6 -9pm
Finissage: June 18, 6-8pm

Impact: A “NEW VISION” The significance of László Moholy-Nagy

06/24 | 6.00pm
Consulate General of Hungary
223 E. 52 nd street, New Yok, NY 10024

A “NEW VISION” The significance of László Moholy-Nagy a discussion with Hattula Moholy-Nagy the artist’s daughter and Karole P.B. Vail curator and organizer of the current exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

moderated by michael szarvasy

László Moholy Nagy: Optical Sound

07/21 7.00PM
MUSIC @ Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum | Rotunda | 1071 5th Ave, New York, NY 10128

A standout musical event under the musical directorship of György Kurtág, jr., featuring works by Liget, Eötvös, Pongrácz and other Hungarian composers of the 1960s and '70s.

In conjunction with Moholy-Nagy: Future Present (May 27 – Sept 7, 2016) on view at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and in response to what Moholy-Nagy refers to as an “opto- acoustic alphabet,” Optical Sound seeks to highlight the intermix between modulated sound and light. Moholy-Nagy approached the promise of technology as a radical means of restoring perceptibility in an era marked by the anesthetization of the senses, seeking to enliven and awaken the biocentric capacities of modern humanity.

Through a utopian integration of art and technology Moholy-Nagy’s writing and work anticipated concepts of “expanded cinema” and immersive tactile media environments well beyond his death in 1946. This laboratory environment is precisely what was subsequently developed by the experimental electroacoustic sound studio of the Hungarian Radio in Budapest where composers produced many rare and innovative works of electronic music in the 1970s. The “Magyar” electronic music scene (1968-1979) featured a number of fascinating, yet largely under-recognized works by Hungarian composers Zoltán Pongrácz, Peter Eötvös, Iván Patachich, Máté Victor and Péter Winckler. Guest curated by media artists and composers Zach Layton and R. Luke Dubois, the Guggenheim proposes a large scale multichannel sound projection of these works in the rotunda of the Guggenheim Museum alongside more well-known pieces of Hungarian electronic music such as the classic work Artikulation by György Ligeti. Electronic music artist, arranger, composer and acoustics scholar Gyorgy Kurtag Jr. orchestrates the sound spatialization of this musical landscape.