In this section you can browse through photographs of Sándor Kereki that were exhibited at "Sándor Kereki - Budapest in the seventies from a boy’s perspective", which took place at Capa Center between 7 December 2023 and 4 February 2024.
Quoting the curatorial text by Szabolcs Barakonyi:
Sándor Kereki received his first camera for his sixteenth birthday from his father. Miracles could not be expected from this Zorki 11, one of the first full-automatic cameras from the Soviet factory that copied two Japanese models to make it. After all, it measured light by selenium-based sensors around the lens, so the camera calculated exposure based on the light shed on the photographer which only matched the amount of light on the subject in overcast weather. But technical reviews are rarely interesting in themselves – similarly to art which is the most intriguing if it transgresses, bypasses, or supersedes the established rules.
In the Lexicon of Basic Concepts section of his book Towards a Philosophy of Photography, Vilém Flusser defines the photographer as “a person who attempts to place, within the image, information that is not predicted within the program of the camera.” (1) While Sándor Kereki is a person who overrode the program of his own camera when he got annoyed by the constraints of the apparatus and figured out how to disable the automatic functions of the Zorki. He discovered that if he put the camera in flash mode but didn’t add the flash, he got a fixed shutter speed and he can adjust the depth of field through setting the aperture on the lens. Armed with this knowledge, he used his first camera for years, albeit in a limited way, in manual mode.
Thanks to his good eyes, success did not take long to come – barely passed a year with him roaming the streets of Budapest, his camera in his hand, when one of his images of angling boys in the City Park made it into Magyar Horgász, and then Pajtás magazines. In the following years, his photos were regularly published in various newspapers and he often won prizes in photo contests. Sándor Kereki didn’t become a photojournalist reporting on world affairs, although regarding the broadest categories of photography, his photos reflecting everyday life could certainly have fallen under the documentary genre. But within that, to be more precise, his oeuvre can be best classified as street photography.
His curiosity is authentic, and he was not motivated by opportunistic compliance with the system. His images are not illustrations of the socialist world glorified in the press of the era, but a classic press photographer career would have started with an internship in the photo section of a newspaper. Drawn in 1963 by János Kass and István Mácsai, noted visual artists of the time, the map in the exhibition clearly shows the areas of the city that Kereki visited during his hikes looking for good themes – the family moved to Terézváros in Budapest in 1961.
The graphic map shown was based on its 1968 edition. Going closer to this map, the telltale names of the squares and streets can also be seen, like the Road of the People’s Republic, Shock Worker Bridge, Lenin Boulevard, Marx Square… and we have already embarked on a time travel on the Ghost Train of Socialism, à la Péter Bacsó’s memorable period comedy The Witness.
Luckily, however, we can take part in another much more uplifting time travel as well in this exhibition. Sándor Kereki started photographing as a teenager, and already stopped it as a young adult. In those ten years while he was growing up, a whole oeuvre was created. In the beginning, he couldn’t have worked in the press due to his age, and a teenage boy couldn’t have been too interested in ideology-influenced work day after day either anyway. He might have guessed that during the 80’s and 90’s in Hungary, it wouldn’t have been possible to make a living from his photography, fueled by his genuine interest in exploring the world and himself. Although he was knowledge-wise ready to become a professional photographer, he chose a different career and started working as a cameraman at the Hungarian Television.
Sándor Kereki submitted his photos to Fortepan in 2021, as a result, 1,774 of his photographs can be seen on the website today – an event reported by most Hungarian photography websites. In his essay written for the album summarizing Sándor Kereki's work as a photographer, published on the occasion of the exhibition, Zsolt Petrányi describes the appropriate way to approach Kereki’s photographic world: “The era in which his photos were taken is gone as if it never existed – the system, the society, and the object culture have all changed for good. Even though it lives on in the memories of the older generations, these images should not be seen through their eyes but with through those who are re-discovering the values and human gestures of this bygone era. We believe that the only reason why Kereki's honest, self-motivated shots could not be taken today is that the settings around the subjects, the cityscape, the clothing and the design of household items have changed. Similarly to the work of posthumously discovered Vivian Maier, and the work of Helen Levitt, the pioneer of color street photography, the presentation of Kereki's enlargements is an important task because it also transcends time and space, and viewers are dazzled by the versatility, irony, and humanity of his images.” (2)
(1) Vilém Flusser, Towards a Philosophy of Photography. Transl. Anthony Mathews. Reaktion Books, London, 2000, p84
(2) Zsolt Petrányi, Kereki Sándor ismeretlen életművének értékelése elé. Kereki Sándor – A hetvenes évek egy srác szemével. Kollektív Fotográfia Kft., published with the support of the Eidolon Foundation. Budapest, 2023, pp12–13
1968
Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts
Budapest VI., intersection of Szinyei Merse Pál street and Kmety György street
1969
Budapest VI., intersection of Szinyei Merse Pál street and Kmety György street
Budapest, City Park
Budapest, Könyves Kálmán boulevard
1970
Budapest VI., from the window of the building at 11 Szinyei Merse Pál street
Budapest, "Kincsem Park" horse racing track
Budapest VI., intersection of Szinyei Merse Pál street and Kmety György street
Budapest VII., Bajza street 1.
Győr
Budapest XIII., "Tripolisz" Housing Project
Budapest, "Kincsem Park" horse racing track
Budapest, Felvonulási square
Budapest, VI., Teréz boulevard 9. (Lenin boulevard 63.)
Budapest, "Kincsem Park" horse racing track
Budapest, "Kincsem Park" horse racing track
1971
Budapest, IX., Fővám square, Central Market Hall
Budapest V., Szabad Sajtó road
Budapest VI., intersection of Andrássy avenue (Népköztársaság útja) and Székely Mihály street
Budapest, XIV., Állatkerti boulevard
Budapest, XIII., intersection of Dráva street and Kárpát street
Budapest, Margaret Island
Budapest XIV., Heroes' square
Budapest, City Park
1972
Budapest VIII., Fecske street (Lévai Oszkár street)
Budapest, City Park boating lake
Budapest, Amusement Park
Budapest VI., intersection of Szinyei Merse Pál street and Kmety György street
Budapest VIII., Fecske street 9. (Lévai Oszkár street)
Budapest, Pest end of Chain Bridge
Budapest, Kunsthalle
Budapest, Kunsthalle
1973
Budapest V., Kígyó street 2.
Poland
Budapest, Széchenyi Thermal Bath
Poster of Sándor Kereki's first solo exhibition
Košice
Budapest, XIII. "Tripolisz" Housing project
Budapest, Astoria
Budapest, Széchenyi Thermal Bath
Poland
Budapest, Kodály circus
Budapest VI., Dózsa György road 84.
Budapest, Felvonulási square
Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts
Poland
Poland
1974
Budapest, VIII. Práter street 35.
Budapest, Ferencváros Railway Station
Budapest, Felvonulási square
Budapest VI., Kodály circus
Budapest VII., Klauzál square
1975
Budapest, VII., Berzsenyi street
Budapest, Danube bank
Budapest, VIII., Mátyás square
Budapest IX., Telepy street 2/b.
Budapest, IX., Boráros square
Budapest VIII., Mátyás square 5/a
1976
Budapest, City Park
Budapest VII., Bethlen Gábor street 31.
Budapest VII., intersection of Bethlen Gábor street and Damjanich street
Budapest, City Park
Budapest, City Park
Budapest, Haller street
Budapest, VI. Csengery street 48.
Budapest
Budapest V., Váci street
Budapest, IX., Mihálkovics Housing Project
Budapest VII., Almássy square
Budapest, Fisherman's Bastion
1977
Budapest, Millennium Underground Railway
Budapest V., Dorottya street
Budapest, Danube bank, aquatic parade on the 20th of August
Budapest, IX., Ernő street
1978
Budapest V., Váci street, "Anna presszó" café
Budapest IX., intersection of Angyal street and Mester street
Budapest IX., Lenhossék street
1980
Budapest VIII., "Klinikák" metro station
Budapest V., Vörösmarty square
Évszám nélküli fotográfiák
1975 or 1977
Budapest XIII., "Tripolisz" Housing Project
Budapest IX., Balázs Béla street
Budapest
Budapest VIII., Teleki square
Budapest, VII., Rákóczi avenue 15 (in the background)
