photos by Attila Lóránt

kArton Galéria presents Attila Lóránt's exhibition whose pictures do not fit into fashionable currents and official trends. He has simply recognised something important in the world among cultures disappearing or on the wane that he feels the urge to show us.

Attila Lóránt deals with several things: he paints pictures, makes drawings, directs commercials, writes books, makes photographs, heads a foundation and he is also owner of a film company. This manifold and versatile activity does not arise from the irresolute precipitation of a wavering person searching himself and his place but is due to the consistency of a person resolute to get acquainted and acquaint others with the world. He considers the paint brush, the pencil, the film and writing only means - forms chosen to express his feelings and thoughts. He starts as a painter - he has been drawing since he was 7. In 1991 he travels to Paris with a painting grant, there he discovers photography for himself. It must be realised that composition is no trouble in his pictures. He knows, he feels what perspective to use, what cutting and construction to apply.

For four years he has been working as a film director - with his commercials he won awards in France, Slovenia, Estonia, Bulgaria, the United States and in Hungary of course. What is the trick to make a good commercial? Among others, it is the successfully accomplished idea, the concise imaging of thoughts and the virtuosic application of the instruments that can immediately dazzle the viewer. These means can also be suitable for getting great ideas adopted. Though, Attila Lóránt does not want to dazzle through his pictures - as far as the expression is interpreted as cheap adoption -; he wants to direct attention to the preservation of cultures disappearing. He does not wish to introduce pleasant things in his photographs - anthropology is at least as important as letting aesthetical beauty be seen. The camera and the process of photographing is not the ultimate purpose but the means of his activity. He is motivated by the topic; this gives his spiritual movement and artistic activity momentum. He has established and heads the 'Waning Cultures', an NGO. He is to publish a book on this topic and is preparing material for National Geographic. The present exhibition also belongs to this activity. In the meantime, he is painting, directing films and writing - versatilely and variously - to enrich us as a fairy creature dispensing treasures.

János Eifert

(details from the opening of Attila Lóránt's exhibition titled SOBA (Welcome). MVM Galéria, Budapest, 3 September 2003)