Budapest Photo Festival is going to take place for the first time this year in spring, and it is going to represent the values and novelties of the classic Hungarian and international photography within the frame of a two-month series of exhibition. Vast range of programmes, workshops, museum educational programmes, portfolio review, photo book exhibition, photo marathon and professional events are awaiting visitors, Ridikül.hu reports.

The festival focuses on the traditions of photography and the outstanding creators and tendencies of contemporary photography. Photographers offer exhibition opportunities for different generations, but mainly for the youngsters, so the public can get to know them. The festival was kicked off on 1. March in the Hall of Art with photographer Alex Webb’s exhibition named The Suffering of Light.

Even in the first year of its existence, Ridikül.hu notes, the festival had been a member of The Photo Europe Network /PHEN/ where they cooperated with Europe’s famous photo festivals, including Nordic Light International Festival of Photography, Guernsey Photography Festival, Festival ManifestO Toulouse, Photometria International Photography Festival, Ioannina, Festival of Ethical Photography, Lodi, Photon Festival, Valencia, Photoromania Festival, and last but not least, Cluj-Napoca. The Municipality of Budapest helps the festival to achieve its aims; the patron of the festival is Alexandra Szalay-Bobrovniczky, Deputy Mayor.

Museums and galleries

According to Ridikül.hu, prestigious museums and other institutions with extended range of programmes have also joined the festival. The Hungarian National Museum organizes a “fence exhibition” of its portrait collection. In the Sports Museum of Hungary, you can get to know the first Hungarian sports photographer, Lajos Vermer. The Hungarian Museum of Trade and Tourism exhibits a selection from Károly Hemző’s artistic gastro photos. The Hungarian Theatre Museum and Institute evokes theatre photographer Béla Ilovszky’s forty-year long career. The Kiscell Museum holds a “Budapest now and then” street photo exhibition. In the small gallery room of the Metropolitan Ervin Szabó Library, exhibitor Judit Erzsébet Szabó has chosen a real Budapest topic: she has been taking photos of the lake in Városliget for long.

Also, several galleries have joined the festival: photos made with Instax mini camera are exhibited in the Erika Deák Gallery at INSTANT exhibition, while in the Molnár Ani Gallery; Péter Forgács’s individual exhibition can be visited. In Faur Zsófi Gallery, the art-exhibition named Highlighted Reality examines the different approaches of the notion of reality. Many individual exhibitions are to be held, such as American Liz Nielsen’s exhibition in the Horizont Gallery, Spanish Angela Sairaf’s exhibition in TOBE Gallery, Péter Herendi’s exhibition in K.A.S Gallery, Attila Venczel’s exhibition in Artphoto Gallery, and Máté Dobokay’s exhibition representing the young generation photographers in Várfok Gallery.

The headline target of the Budapest Photo Festival is to encourage the scene and the actors of the region to cooperate. The Budapest VILTIN Gallery with the Ljubjanian Photon Gallery organize two exhibitions: they are about to introduce tendencies of the contemporary Western-Balcanian and the Hungarian photography through young photographers’ art. The exhibition is going to introduce works of ex-Yugoslavian and Hungarian photographers’ selected by an international judge, Ridikül.hu writes.

Cultural institutes

Besides museums and galleries, other cultural institutions operating in and near Budapest – including the exhibitions of contemporary Hungarian photographers of the French Institute, the Italian Institute of Culture, the Budapest Yunus Emre Institute, the Budapest Cervantes Institute and the Polish Institute have also joined the festival with their own exhibitions.

Find details here.

Photos: Facebook.com/Budapest Photo Festival

ce: bm

Source: Ridikül.hu, Facebook.com/Budapest Photo Festival