Károly Kincses

A Cabinet of Curiosities

The Photographic Practices of Gábor Kerekes

 

Here I would like to discuss a photographer who brings a unique hue to the Hungarian palette of photography. Both in his personality and work, Gábor Kerekes combines the most modern twenty-first-century photographic methods with alchemist practices. There is a self-evident artlessness in his use of methods ranging from the camera obscura and Polaroid to the latest digital techniques. All this is done with the care and creativity that conveys the kind of mysticism inherent in his studies of nature in retro style. Perhaps in all contemporary Hungarian photography, it is in Kerekes’s art that one can find the presence of the quality expected until about the beginning of the twentieth century in every master photographer, that is, to be able to choose from his arsenal of many techniques the one most suited for transmitting a given message. Hence Kerekes, unlike most photographers at the mercy of contemporary technology, works with great independence, which is of great benefit to his pictures.
His latest photographs explore birth, death and existence. These uniquely artistic and, at the same time, scientific photographs cover the elements of the microcosm and the macrocosm: the sky, the stars, planets; the microscopic blow-ups of his own blood, bodily fluids and drops of sweat, body parts in methylated spirits; objects carrying traces of forgotten knowledge. Kerekes does a peculiar thing in his work: he contemplates philosophical questions, while creating images of sophisticated composition.

Gábor Kerekes: Chemical Instrument, 1991.
Toned gelatine silver print, 23 x 18 cm.

Gábor Kerekes: Over Rosswell, 2002.
Toned gelatine silver print, 14 x 11 cm.

Gábor Kerekes: Over Rosswell, 2002.
Toned gelatine silver print, 14 x 11 cm.

[...]

 

Károly Kincses
is Chief Consultant at the Hungarian Museum of Photography in Kecskemét and the Hungarian House of Photography in Mai Manó House, Budapest.