TAT  Contemporary Art Gallery

„I was astonished at first sight by the picture taken by Sándor Hegyes.[...] Hegyes quasi disassembles the original photos into layers and moves them so that the essence of all the three main figures in the picture appear on each other, that is, the woman, the torso and the explicit nudity. From the combination of these three, he creates this beautifully grainy view, by using [André] Kertész’ attributes, he puts his own Kertész-antithesis together, which glorifies Kertész as well. And this is a contradiction which gives this photography a competitive edge after all. Reinterpretation already has the potential of denial in itself, what is more, the demand on denial, which is just the basis of creation, of building an own character. The metaphor of signs is merely a game, which might intrigue competent fanatics but in its own, it’s no more than a private conversation undecipherable for the uninitiated. Beside this, we also need another interpretational level because without it, the formal virtuosity is just like racing the engine without moving. And the secretive quality provides this particular interpretational level as, contradiction to Kertész’s aloofness, presenting sexuality but in a highly tasteful way. We don’t know who this woman in the picture is. Even if she really is a dancer, it is only by accident and in any case, she is sexually exciting without doing anything besides being naked. As if she weren’t even posing, only being with no purpose, just for her own enjoyment and we, workaday perverts, were peeping through a keyhole as voyeaurs. The real secret of this picture is how it involves us, the viewers and manages to force this voyeur role on us in a way that we are even smiling and nodding while accepting it.”

Opening speech by Csaba Aknay (given on 12th December 2012 at HÁROM HÉT GALLERY)