JANOS FRECOT | PÉTER NÁDAS

EXHIBITION Sep 12 — Dec 15, 2012

PÉTER NÁDAS (*1942)

Shadow of a pergola, from the series 'Story of Light', 1999-2004

inkjet print

25 x 25 cm

© Péter Nádas / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

PÉTER NÁDAS (*1942)

Window upon the door, from the series 'Story of Light', 1999-2004

inkjet print

25 x 25 cm

© Péter Nádas / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

PÉTER NÁDAS (*1942)

Shadow of branches, from the series 'Story of Light', 1999-2004

inkjet print

25 x 25 cm

© Péter Nádas / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

PÉTER NÁDAS (*1942)

Shadow of an armchair, from the series 'Story of Light', 1999-2004

inkjet print

25 x 25 cm

© Péter Nádas / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

PÉTER NÁDAS (*1942)

Window with green mosquito net, from the series 'Story of Light', 1999-2004

inkjet print

25 x 25 cm

© Péter Nádas / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

JANOS FRECOT (*1937)

Berlin, 1965-1966

gelatin silver print, printed by André Kirchner 2012

36,4 x 26,7 cm

© Janos Frecot / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

JANOS FRECOT (*1937)

Berlin, 1965-1966

gelatin silver print, printed by André Kirchner 2012

36,4 x 26,7 cm

© Janos Frecot / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

JANOS FRECOT (*1937)

Berlin, 1965-1966

gelatin silver print, printed by André Kirchner

36,2 x 26,7 cm

© Janos Frecot / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

JANOS FRECOT (*1937)

Berlin, 1965-1966

inkjet print, framed

73 x 100 cm

© Janos Frecot / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

JANOS FRECOT (*1937)

Berlin, 1965-1966

gelatin silver print, printed by André Kirchner 2012

26,8 x 36,2 cm

© Janos Frecot / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

JANOS FRECOT (*1937)

Berlin, 1965-1966

gelatin silver print, printed by André Kirchner 2012

26,7 x 36,4 cm

© Janos Frecot / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

JANOS FRECOT (*1937)

Berlin, 1965-1966

inkjet print, framed, printed 2012

73 x 100 cm

© Janos Frecot / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

JANOS FRECOT (*1937)

Berlin, 1964-65

gelatin silver print, printed ca. 1964-65

35,7 x 29,5 cm

© Janos Frecot / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

JANOS FRECOT (*1937)

Berlin, 1964-65

gelatin silver print, printed ca. 1964-65

35,5 x 29,5 cm

© Janos Frecot / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

JANOS FRECOT (*1937)

Berlin, 1964-65

gelatin silver print, printed ca. 1964-65

35,7 x 29,7 cm

© Janos Frecot / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

JANOS FRECOT (*1937)

Berlin, 1964-65

gelatin silver print, printed ca. 1964-65

35,5 x 29,5 cm

© Janos Frecot / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

JANOS FRECOT (*1937)

Berlin, 1964-65

gelatin silver print, printed ca. 1964-65

29,6 x 35,7 cm

© Janos Frecot / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

JANOS FRECOT (*1937)

Berlin, 1964-65

gelatin silver print, printed ca. 1964-65

35,7 x 29,7 cm

© Janos Frecot / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

JANOS FRECOT (*1937)

Berlin, 1964-65

gelatin silver print, printed ca. 1964-65

35,5 x 29,5 cm

© Janos Frecot / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

JANOS FRECOT (*1937)

Berlin, 1965-66

gelatin silver print, printed by André Kirchner 2012

36,2 x 26,6 cm

© Janos Frecot / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

JANOS FRECOT (*1937)

Berlin, 1964-65

gelatin silver print, printed 2007

ca. 40 x 50 cm

© Janos Frecot / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

JANOS FRECOT (*1937)

Berlin, 1965-1966

gelatin silver print, printed by André Kirchner 2012

36,3 x 26,7 cm

© Janos Frecot / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

JANOS FRECOT (*1937)

Berlin, 1966

gelatin silver print, printed 2007

ca. 40 x 50 cm

© Janos Frecot / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

JANOS FRECOT (*1937)

Berlin, 1965-1966

inkjet print, framed, printed 2012

100 x 73 cm

© Janos Frecot / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

JANOS FRECOT (*1937)

Bahnbogen 22-79, 1966

16 of 20 inkjet prints, printed 2012

each 20 x 100 cm

© Janos Frecot / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

PÉTER NÁDAS (*1942)

Hügel in Gombosszeg bei Dämmerung, 1992

gelatin silver print, printed later

22,5 x 22,5 cm

© Péter Nádas / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

PÉTER NÁDAS (*1942)

Kerti székek / Gartenstühle, 1959

gelatin silver print, printed 2003

23,5 x 18,2 cm

© Péter Nádas / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

JANOS FRECOT (*1937)

Berlin, 1964-65

gelatin silver print, printed 2007 by André Kirchner

ca. 40 x 50 cm

© Janos Frecot / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

JANOS FRECOT (*1937)

Berlin, 1966

gelatin silver print, printed 2007 by André Kirchner

ca. 40 x 50 cm

© Janos Frecot / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

PÉTER NÁDAS (*1942)

Das Kaffeehaus New York im unterschiedlichen Vormittagslicht, 1962

gelatin silver print, printed later

23 x 17,5 cm

© Péter Nádas / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

PÉTER NÁDAS (*1942)

Blick auf den Hauptplatz von Makó, 1962

gelatin silver print, printed later

23 x 18 cm

© Péter Nádas / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

PÉTER NÁDAS (*1942)

Vater, Kinder und Großmutter, 1968

gelatin silver print, printed later

22 x 23 cm

© Péter Nádas / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

PÉTER NÁDAS (*1942)

Jéghoki a pusztán / Eishockey in der Tiefebene, 1963

gelatin silver print, printed 2007

22,8 x 22 cm

© Péter Nádas / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

PÉTER NÁDAS (*1942)

Búcsúban / Am Kirmes, 1967

gelatin silver print, printed ca. 1967

24,1 x 18,5 cm

© Péter Nádas / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

PÉTER NÁDAS (*1942)

Katze im Küchenfenster, 1964

gelatin silver print, printed later

22 x 21 cm

© Péter Nádas / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

PÉTER NÁDAS (*1942)

Ein kleiner Junge, eingesperrt, 1963

gelatin silver print, printed later

23 x 18 cm

© Péter Nádas / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

PÉTER NÁDAS (*1942)

Külvárosi utcarészlet, ahogy a pinceablakból látható / Straßenabschnitt in einem Vorort, vom Kellerfenster aus gesehen, 1973

gelatin silver print, printed 2003

23,9 x 18,4 cm

© Péter Nádas / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

PÉTER NÁDAS (*1942)

Veszprémi apácák / Nonnen aus Veszprém, 1961

gelatin silver print, printed 2003

17,9 x 24,3 cm

© Péter Nádas / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

PÉTER NÁDAS (*1942)

Éjjeli mulató/ Nachtlokal, 1970

gelatin silver print, printed 2003

17,5 x 24,5 cm

© Péter Nádas / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

PÉTER NÁDAS (*1942)

Cèllövölde / Scheibenschießen, 1967

gelatin silver print, printed 2003

17,4 x 24,3 cm

© Péter Nádas / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

PÉTER NÁDAS (*1942)

Ferencvárosi ablak/ Franzstädter Fenster, 1972

gelatin silver print, printed 2003

23,7 x 18,3 cm

© Péter Nádas / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

On the occasion of the fifth annual European Month of Photography Berlin, Kicken Berlin will exhibit works by Janos Frecot and Péter Nádas. Frecot documented the impressive architectural testaments of Berlin’s history in the mid 1960s. Preceding and accompanying his literary endeavors since the early 1960s, writer Péter Nádas has captured in photographs moments of everyday life in Hungary. Both artists’ work manifests in their own individual ways the engaged view of the compassionate observer. The exhibition also celebrates two other special occasions – Janos Frecot’s 75th and Péter Nádas’s 70th birthdays.
As founder and long-time director of the photography collection of the state museum Berlinische Galerie, Janos Frecot made important works of art accessible to the general public. His photographic beginnings, however, are rooted in the practice of the medium itself. Implementing his firsthand knowledge of the technical foundations of photography and the photo lab, Frecot turned his attention in the early 1960s to his immediate surroundings. The city of Berlin and all of its historical layers inspired the passionate flaneur. Facades, courtyards, firewalls, and monolithic individual buildings isolated in intermittent urban wastelands bore the traces of history: silhouettes of vanished buildings, brick remnants, old advertisements. The series Mauern / Walls (1965–66) goes beyond the archeological or documentary impulse, creating a rich and aesthetic realm of the imagination. Similar to Bernd and Hilla Becher’s approach, Frecot also used a large-format camera to pursue – though indeed less systematically – a survey. The work Bahnbogen 22-79’ / Rail Arch 22-79’ (1966), taken at Berlin’s Gleisdreieck, was originally a 25-meter panorama constructed of individual images. The motivation behind a seamless and sober survey of the railway’s contemporary state, which nonetheless reveals historical developments, is one Frecot shares with his contemporary, Ed Ruscha, and that artist’s Every building on Sunset Strip (1966).
Hungarian writer Péter Nádas has, since the late 1950s, created a today little-known body of photographic work. Beginning as a photo reporter, he accompanied life in cities and in the countryside as a silent observer, finding in his images increasingly immaterial, moving allegories in light and shadow. He focuses on the usually little-noticed, unspectacular objects of nature and everyday life. His recent two-volume publication with the Swiss publishing house Nimbus Verlag is entitled Story of Shadow - Story of Light. Both Nádas’s journalistic works and his everyday observations have the effect of surreal miniatures, contextually removed from their immediate surroundings, but retain the pictorial language of humanistic and empathetic reportage. These are collected in the Story of Shadow. The Story of Light, photographs taken between 1999 and 2004, affixes transitory shadow images with the strong contrasts of surprisingly beautiful, tender overlays. The visual narrative corresponds with an essay on intuitive seeing. The overarching contemplation of text, image, and the philosophical world is also the focus of the current solo exhibition of Nádas’s work at the Kunsthaus Zug in Switzerland.