Artist Blog

Every week an artist whose single image was published by Der Greif is given a platform in which to blog about contemporary photography.

In recent months Hungary was first page news in the media, thanks to the migration crisis culminating in the closure of southern borders an thanks to the 'un-orthodox' financial politics. Szabolcs Barakonyi reflects on the twisted outside and inside narratives of the political facade from a very personal and critical viewpoint in his series Fine, thanks! 'Public events are typically organized so as to make it possible for a group of people to demonstrate their tradition and rituals to a wider audience. This is equally true for the politician’s ribbon­cutting ceremonies inaugurating a new building, the ‘authentic prehistoric Hungarians’ shows shooting their arrows backwards from their horses, or the firemen’s demonstration of their skills in a spectacular pageant. The hidden obscene aspect of such events is the contradiction between the organizer’s intentions and the audience’s spontaneous reaction to it. The organizers always want to impose an official narrative on the audience but the latter tends to resist and in this discrepancy between their respective interpretations reality comes to the surface. The audience resists the official story and finally we may learn something completely different about the nature of the event than the organizer wanted us to see.' - Szabolcs Barakonyi