GÁBOR GERHES (1962)
"I use the property of the photograph that we believe the image for what it represents. But with a caption we believe the opposite. So the content we assign to the picture can even override reason. I believe that if the pictorial elements are well and effectively arranged, some kind of message will appear in the background and it will work without having to explain its symbolism. Each person puts their own symbolism into the picture and finds their own interpretation." Gábor Gerhes
Munkácsy Mihály Prize-winning artist, university lecturer. Between 2006 and 2015 he was a lecturer at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design and since 2010 he has been a lecturer in photography at the Budapest Metropolitan University. His creative work has been recognized with numerous grants, the Eötvös Foundation Grant of the Ministry of Culture, the Derkovits Grant, the Munkácsy Award and many other awards. Between 2004 and 2005 he received a French state artist grant to the Recollettes in Paris and in 2006 he was invited by Kulturkontakt to Vienna. In 2014, he was awarded the AICA (International Association of Art Critics) Grand Prize. In 2014, he was included in the selection of the 30 best Hungarian photographers by Kreatív magazine. He is a full member of the Széchenyi Academy of Literature and Art.
Gábor Gerhes is one of the most important representatives of conceptual art in Hungary, exhibiting regularly since 1985. In this early period he was also involved in music, playing guitar in a band called 2. műsor. He was already interested in visuals, designing posters and sets. (He also worked on more serious film productions.) Initially he painted acrylics, but gradually developed the absurd, grotesque, symbolic world that characterises his work. Photography plays an important role in his art, often including himself in various pre-composed, staged scenes. In many cases, he reflects on social phenomena, current problems and even political issues. As the art historian Krisztina Jerger put it, "He is ruthless and razor-sharp in his insight into the power that imagines itself infallible. As she admits, it is the artist's task to pose the problem. But he leaves the freedom to answer to the viewer." He often uses texts, whether in Hungarian or in foreign languages.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bN5gH2bRRJo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1d4pE-7EYI
He also works as an applied graphic designer. For many years he was the art director of Europa Book Publishers (Európa Könyvkiadó), where he designed book covers and implemented a rebranding. He also designed the graphic design for the architectural magazineOctogon, the graphic design and catalogues for the 48th and 53rd Venice Biennale of Fine Arts and the 9th Venice Architecture Biennale.
The exhibition at the Dubniczay Palace includes two of his works: Five Defeats Six (photo, print, 2001) and Religious madness - God's Unpleasant Proximity (polished mahogany wood, 2015). While the former explores the unquestionability of mathematics (through numbers 'coming to life' in the photograph), the latter explores religion and faith, placing stick-man-like figures, 'animated wooden crosses', in the space.
His works are held abroad in the H. Ringier Collection in Switzerland and the Kunsthaus Glarus, the world's largest corporate photography collection, the Stiftung DZ Bank AG - Frankfurt am Main Collection in Germany, and in numerous other private and public collections in Hungary and abroad.
The artist is represented in Hungary by acb Gallery. He lives and works in Budapest and Balatonalmádi.
In 2020, thanks to the support of the National Cultural Fund, the House of Arts Veszprém successfully submitted a bid to Contemporary Art Collection for the purchase of his work The Four Elements - The Path of Beauty (2015, triptych, giclée print Ed.3.).
