The Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Centre opened in Budapest on Monday evening with the exhibition Projected contemporary images. At the opening, Minister of Human Resources Mr. Zoltán Balog emphasised that the Government provided HUF 155 million (app. EUR 516 000) in 2013 for the functioning of the institution and will provide HUF 198 million (app. EUR 660 000) in funding in 2014.
“It is a demonstration in support of photography as an art that so many people have gathered for the opening”, Mr. Balog said to the public filling the exhibition rooms of the building in Nagymező Street. The Minister emphasised that the opening of the Centre represented the settling of an old debt, because the great Hungarian photographers of the 20th century deserve to have their life's work studied.
“The photos of André Kertész, Márton Munkácsi, Robert Capa or Brassai determine not only the past but also contemporary photography,” Mr. Balog said. According to the Minister, the Government provided HUF 155 million in 2013 for the functioning of the institution and will provide HUF 198 million in funding in 2014.
In her opening speech, the Centre’s Executive Director Ms. Orsolya Kőrösi pointed out that photography is claiming more and more space within visual arts, and contemporary Hungarian photographers are also successful on the international scene, and accordingly it is an undeniable fact that Hungarian photography needed a predictable and state-subsidised cultural institution.
At the opening, Kossuth Award winning photographer Tamás Féner praised Capa with the following words: “In addition to his achievements as a photo journalist, the world-famous creator was an excellent organiser, as proven by the fact that the Magnum Photos agency – which he founded – still exists”.
During the press conference prior to the opening, Curator Balázs Telek said that the contest organised for the opening exhibition of the Photography Centre was awaiting responses to the question of how Robert Capa would take photos in the opinion of the contestants, and what do they think about the Centre’s eponym. Over 600 entries including a total of 1001 works were submitted for the contest until the 3 November deadline. The exhibition, which is open for visitors until 31 December, displays the works of contestants and invited photographers, a total of 34 artists and groups. in digital format.
The international jury awarded the grand prize of the contest, which has a total of HUF 1.6 million in prize money, to the photography department of Buda Drawing School for their project entitled Self Fashion Show (Öndivatbemutató). Further prizes were awarded to the photo column of the Hungarian news site Origo, Mr Benedek Lakatos, Mr István Szőnyi and Mr Árpád Sopsits.
Before the opening, Ms. Kőrösi announced that among others, planned future exhibitions at the Centre include Sebastiao Salgado’s Genesis project, the 2014 Hungarian Press Photo Exhibition and a collection selected from the archives of Magnum Photos.
Negotiations have been going on for some time about the reunification of the Capa Centre and the former Tivoli Theatre, originally envisioned as a single unit by Lajos Ernst, who was behind the construction of the building, but for now the Centre has opened as a ‘half institution’, the Director said in reply to a question from Hungarian News Agency MTI.
(MTI)
