GÁBOR KASZA

Y (2009-2011)

Gábor Kasza, inspired by the dance and physical theatre, has arrived at the staged photography and is one of those artists who frequently change their perspectives, and consequently the way of looking at the world becomes a subject of enquiry in his series.

The Y series analyses one of the most exigent questions of our age, namely, the dilemma of sustainable environment. Kasza’s photographs quite often recall surrealistic visions and they operate with the mix of aestheticism and conceptualism. At the same time, by colliding the absurd with the mundane, he triggers in the viewer an impulse to leave behind the habitual perception. Due to a combination of the symbolism of his imagery and the realistic aspect of the art of photography, the effect achieved might serve as the focal point of interpretation of the series. The title and form of this work is a sort of a symbol of an unavoidable ‘fork in the road’, which for all of us may well be an exclamation since according to Kasza’s compositions the whole humanity is ‘on the horns of such an inevitable dilemma’.

The Y series is both a search for identity and a socio-critical reflection beyond the fact that it draws our attention to a deliberately chosen way, philosophy of life. It introduces us into a photographical vision of the desiring and fearing human being; it is the transformer and the sufferer of its own context, the representative and the represented, the personified symbol of itself. The photographer sums up his intentions as follows: “My goal is to create such photographs which encompass the spiritual-intellectual movements of the European individual living today and express the psychic process of life which is told to be invisible. My photographs reveal problems of the consumer society, and the identity crisis of an individual being part of it. I am deeply interested in both the relation of a human being and the natural environment and the relation between human beings themselves… I transpose all these in spaces which are real, though their effect is that of a pre-arranged scenery, and make the perspective more absurd.”

GÁBOR KASZA
born in 1977 in Komárom (Hungary), lives in Budapest (Hungary)
www.gaborkasza.com

Gábor Kasza graduated in photojournalism from MUOSZ Bálint György Journalist School, and after that, he worked as a photojournalist for 3 years. Later, his attention was drawn in the direction of middle format, so he started to work with studio techniques, using 6×6 and 6×7 formats, creating portraits, advertisements and fashion for magazines. Currently, Gabor is the artistic director of Cultiris – a cultural photo agency and gallery. Between 2007 and 2009, he used to be the Secretary of the Studio of Young Photographers (a section of the Association of Hungarian Photographers). He is an initiator and an organiser the Fotoporta portfolio reviews and the Fotófalu (Photovillage) foundation and summer school.