- Venue
- Atlas Gallery
- Location
If these reviews exclusively covered contemporary art, I would still make some sort of argument for these early twentieth century Hungarian photographs to be included. There is so much still to be played out in the art of that time, in the Surrealist movement, that those ideas are still current in the minds of contemporary practice.
A self-taught photographer and part of the Parisian Dadaists, Kertész’ work is inventive and self-contained, forming an essential contribution to the language of photography, and especially photojournalism. His decisive moments draw the eye and tell layers of stories.
The distorted nude photographs reveal an inner psychological state, a sense of dysmorphia or how our inner feelings are mapped and located. We can see a century’s worth of photographs and paintings exploring these very themes, and here they are, dated only by the style of the models’ eyebrows. The prints are small, the size of old fashioned snaps, giving them a treasured feel.
This is the kind of gallery that doesn’t seem to bother about you much while you are looking. While it’s great to be left alone to look at the art, it’s a bit disconcerting to be in the middle of staff conversations shouted between offices or up stairs.
