They say that photography is the art of the moment. They say that a good photographer can find and capture the point of events, that holds what was long before and what is yet to be. Are there true moments at all? They also say, that photography is the art of selection. The photographer just goes around the world with his magic gadgets, chooses a moment of reality and - click - he has a good picture. Who tells him when the right moment is?
   They also say that of all the forms of art, photography is closest to reality, as light itself makes the pictures.
   Perhaps that is why photography has become the most mendacious and manipulative art, because we believe everything we see in the picture and by the time we get suspicious it might be too late.
   Since photos and computers met, the situation became even more uncertain. Nowadays, you can not believe the picture you see. We can only trust, that the author of Ál/arcok will try to use the possibilities of the photo and the computer impartially and honestly to make beautiful and true lies.

I am a press photographer by profession. That is what I always wanted to be. I have always been interested in human fates, especially people struggling on the outskirts of society. Beyond the WHO? WHAT? WHEN? and WHERE? of the press, I felt more and more that I cannot answer the most important question: WHY? I think that a picture of a single moment can often conceal, rather than reveal, the events of which it was taken. That is why, in the early eighties, I started creating montages and later, layering multiple moments over each other using multiple exposure. Computers help me further in taking reality apart and putting it back together. I feel that my pictures are successful, if the realistic atmosphere of the black and white original remains, but the viewers ask themselves: ‘Is what I can see real?’ My tools have changed, but my aims are the same as they were as a novice: I try to show the truth beneath the surface. Even if it seems hopeless.

Péter Horváth was born in 1945 in Kiskunfélegyháza. After the secondary school he worked as a photo-technician at the Danubian water management in Baja between 1963 and 1971. He took the exam for special photography having prepared for it privately, and his photos were published regularly in the local newspaper and were entering photo competitions. His first show was assisted by the Duna Photo Club in Baja in 1965. His national recognition came with the Merit Award of the MFSZ in 1965. He got admitted to the members of the Hungarian Photographers Association in 1971, the same year he became the employee of Hungarian News Agency MTI as a photographer. Between 1973 and 1975 he studied photo-journalism at Bálint György School of Journalism. He was the photo-reporter of the magazine Magyar Ifjúság from 1976, and its editor between 1985 and 1985. In 1977 he was a founding member, and temporarily the secretary of the Studio of Young Photographers. After working for the daily Népszava for 9 months in 1985, he was hired by the weekly Képes 7 between 1986 and 1989. Between 1990-1991 he was the photo-editor of the journal Anna, then the employee of the weekly Európa, and in 1993 the editor of the daily Mai Nap. He changed in 1994 for the weekly Reform where he became the photo-editor a year later. Since 1996 he has been working for the publisher Axel Springer.

Exhibitions, publications, awards:

1965 Baja (montage)
1968 Kaposvár (montage)
1970 Budapest Photo Club (montage, still-lives)
1971 Budapest, Ferencváros Cellar Exhibition (reportage)
1975 MTI Vadas Ernő Room (reportage)
1975 Fészek Club (photo essay about a female workers’ hostel)
1980 Kiskunfélegyháza (multiexposition)
1981 Duna Gallery (multiexposition)
1986 Ernst Museum (Cuban immigrant workers, housing estate, various techniques)
2000 Hungarian House of Photography (computer montage)

2001 Más-kép - photo-album
2005 Layers - photo-album

1986 Balázs Béla Award


Copyright © Péter Horváth

Entrance to the exhibition