Lenke Szilagyi
Parties
Lenke Szilágyi is an established Hungarian photographer, who is well known for her black and white pictures, showing the everyday life of her surroundings with unique and sharp regard. She never stages, never puts herself into the director’s chair, because the stimuli of the pure human life in Eastern Europe and its environment, are more than enough for her. She does the simplest thing with the most sensitive approach – watches, listens, feels… and takes pictures.
Since the beginning of her career, she has been photographing her milieu, the true faces of life – punks, musicians, old houses and even still life scenes, like a stuffed fox in the flea market. Her talent lies beneath the explicable - her character is so shy and sensitive that she can hide behind her camera, like an invisible man – to enter and dig in the human purgatory.
One of her recent series, called Party-Pictures, sparkles with incredible colors and gives us an internal glimpse of the nightlife of Hungary. Since the past decade, this country has become one of the favorite destinations of Europeans to go out, drink, dance and do what else follows. Lenke Szilágyi doesn’t miss any events of this kind, let it be the CineTrip in the Rudas Bath, the Sziget Festival, an illegal party in the forest, or simply the capital’s clubs and bars. She offers us a panorama, even if we do not want to confront these actions and reactions, hidden by the obscurity.
These images also seems quite ordinary for the first sight: good composition, hazardous lighting, long exposure or other effects to catch the time – but when we observe their details – they become heavy, sharp, sometimes even cruel. Under the surface of nice colors, dynamic arrangement and vibrating emotions, we see our own unconscious side again and again.
Sara Stenczer
