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::: cult -> art, pop, visual culture, cultural strategies

2010-09-11

Munkácsi's revolution (part 10 / 11)

The shining through of an uncredited artist


::::: finally: shining through

In history when a great artist died he'd still have a second chance to get thru, meaning posterity. For Martin Munkacsi this wasn't an easy one either (not that it had been "easy" for Van Gogh for example). The atmosphere around Munkacsi must have become quite bitter by the end. They say he'd still show up at the Bazaar's corridors even in the 60's haunting and hunting for some commissions. He held on till his very lasts. But by that time he had multiple hard layers of reasons to be bitter (some 15 years of being neglected will do that for a proud person). Hurt and proud people will hurt others, and get themselves hurt just more - it's not so hard to imagine that by the 1960's socially he might have become a problem for most of the people he knew. That's for his posterity ...

 

Cardboard boxes in a Connecticut warehouse - for as long as it was paid for (for 20 years). Like a sentence of life. And one day the boxes can no loner stay, they even have to leave the warehouse. And then, perhaps in a hazy morning some local auction of oldies takes place in the backyard of a warehouse and some boxes go to a person who perhaps likes collecting old photographs. Fade out.

This moment could have just been the period to the end of a sad and long sentence. But it didn't happen that way. His talent shone thru all those layers of dust and time. There was a young fashion photographer in the 1970's who was struck by the beauty and freshness of Munkacsi's photographs that he happened to see at the Ullstein Verlag (Publishing house). Munkacsi's talent shone thru. Without names, without reputation. Just the pure images. It was quite an encounter for the photographer, he was amazed by the beauty and originality of those pictures - he, as a photographer could really tell. He started to collect Munkacsi which practically meant starting out a research of a lifetime. It was (and is) F.C. Gundlach. Munkacsi's first pioneer admirer, who as much as saved Munkacsi's art for history.

Mr. Gundlach went after the art of the lost artist. Collected Munkacsi pictures and went to all the places that Munkacsi'd been to, went to meet all those people that used to know Munkacsi and from a scattered puzzle he step by step drew out the story how Munkacsi lived and worked.

In 2005 he launched an exhibition in Hamburg that went to Berlin in 2006 and New York in 2007. He managed to get a book published by Steidl, a huge and representative album with texts by Klaus Honnef. A huge celebration. This and the exhibition series shook the world. By F. C. Gundlach Martin Munkacsi was brought back to history.

One day when the exhibition was in New York something happened - all those boxes lost in the mist of history, sold out from the warehouse decades ago all of a sudden popped up on eBay. For $ 1 million. Munkacsi was no longer a noname valueless shadow of history - but the famous photographer from the 1930's who worked for Harper's Bazaar. The seller was quoting Mr. Gundlach's texts so the series of exhibition and all was no random coincidence to the eBay encounter. The curator of the ICP was the fastest however to fetch the catch. Mr. Gundlach couldn't actually get that lost archive - but he's totally content with ICP's and Joan Munkacsi's having it (went to visit there and ICP they showed him the pictures). New York based ICP is a great home for those Hungarian photographers anyhow.



When Munkacsi got out on the eBay, it was one of the first moments he got the respect he deserves. (now he got it from the neutral world and not "only" from those who passionately love him and his art). At this moment his pictures (negatives in the cardboard boxes) were offered for $1 million. He was a brilliant artist working as a commercial photographer his whole life, and now, at this moment all of a sudden he just got it at a marketplace what various art-institutes, generations of art historians failed to provide him for decades: respect for his work, that is respect for his art. The boxes with those 4000 plates of negatives made their way back to history through the undistinguished path of everydays competing with all the other "items" to finally get home, get where they belong: to the great history of Art.

For many decades there were only about 300 photographs by Munkacsi (basically the F.C. Gundlach collection and the Ullstein collection and private persons) and now all of a sudden there's 4000 more. Quite a celebration. Quite an occasion for a new beginning. Also, it's quite a heartwarming feeling to know that his last moment holding on to the last of his cameras and to the essence of his photography at that soccer game (catching the right moment) was not the end. He can finally get the credits for all his contributions to art and photography. We can now start recognizing Munkacsi's work at its fair and right place, that is respecting and enjoying his amazing talent, his brilliant style, sharp mind and amazing know-how, his visual vitality, his addiction to reality and to the beauty of it. He was a revolutioner and even today, ages later when we enjoy the sensation of photography, wherever we look, whenever we look at pictures we'll "still" be enjoying the taste of his revolution ...



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Photographs linked and/or appearing in this article belong to Ullstein Verlag (Ullstein Bild) (Munkacsi's Berliner period), to the Harper's Bazaar and ICP.org (International Center of Photography) and F.C. Gundlach respectively.

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következő fejezet: original sources, great readings
a cikk fejezetei:
-JP-
2010-09-11

tags: Martin Munkacsi, photography, Gundlach