A Pécsi József Fotóművészeti ösztondíjasok beszámoló kiállítása (Budapest, 2004)
introduction o,», The birth of a photograph is determined by the artist's approach to reality. At the moment of recording the main actors are the artist's eyes and mind, which determine the subject of the exposition. What a photographer records with a camera is the key for his/her work. This is the ground for all kinds of conceptions and conscious image-making. This is the choice that results in the goal and the content, which is the main characteristic feature of an artist. He/she could record anything, but he/she stops at certain things and notices his/her subject in that certain thing. The other determining factor of the work of a photographer is what he/she does not record in his/her pictures. It circumscribes the conception: the decision that is made when he/she notices something interesting but does not use the camera. Abandonment is an experiment for creating related images. Therefore the relation between the photographer and reality is a comprehensive and unforeseeable problem. Yet, the artist's means are not boundless, as they are determined by technology and technique: the camera and the way of enlargement. Thus dealing with this genre means the model, the base of thinking about images. Several philosophical views have influenced the conception of image-making. Analysing the art of our age, we can feel that these conceptions have been mixed and have simultaneous effects and they no longer present the artists with a basis for determining their strategy besides the understanding of their means. The main attraction of the work of the young generation of artists is the way they deal with these repeatedly raised questions. Their answers are experiments that could lead to the attitude of the future. Therefore the reason of the yearly change of the József Pécsi Grant is that the curators are searching for these new answers. Not only that new members guarantee refreshment, but also the way this grant reflects the changes of the position, problems and attitudes of young Hungarian photography. A few years ago fine artistic and traditional uses of photography were the main driving force of this professional discourse. The board of curators gave freedom to new ways of expression by giving the grant to those fine artists who thought of photography as the medium of new dimensions in thinking about images. Now this tendency has changed: the novelty of discourse is indicated by a change of approach of a new generation. We might say in general, that the new ones think differently within the scope of photography by not following strictly the panels they inherited from the preceding generations. The problems of image-making are not only technological ones. Not only digital photography but as a consequence the determining factors of aesthetics have been revised. Young artists thought about the possible way of building their career not on generally accepted values, but by choosing a more risky way they re-define the concept of photographic expression. This experiment points out: these artists believe that besides traditional values new forms of expression can serve as the foundation for personality and artistic means. Naturally, the truth or quality of these new forms will be judged in the future. The individualism of contemporary young photography is valuable as it offers a new direction for Hungarian image-making, which is not based on comparing different media but on the age-related definition of the genre. From this point of view the selection of this catalogue is propitious as we can see four different approaches, all connected to the conception mentioned above. In the following pages you will see pictures of fine art inspiration by Ágnes Szabics, commercial-like socio-photographs by István Hajdú, scenic photographs resembling visions of memory by László Zöld and conceptual landscape segments by Tamás Nagy, as the work of József Pécsi Grant holders of the past two years. Zsolt Petrányi