Oldal 13 [13]
FROM THE BODY IN MOTION
TO MOTION PICTURE
ON THE OEUVRE OF JANOS EIFERT
Thanks to Katalin Lőrinc
Ars poetica
“To me, photography is like playing a game. A very serious game.
It also signifies the possibility of knowing the world, of encounters,
new tasks, and the freedom to communicate my thoughts in my
own visual language. To look - to see - and to render seeable: this
is the mission of the photographer, as s/he balances on the edge of
imagination and reality."
Presenting the greatest merits of Janos Eifert’s multidirectional artistic oeuvre within the
framework of ashort monograph is no easy task. His body of photographic work, for instance, in
itself is so monumentally vast with so many different bifurcations, that restricting our discussion
only to that would still require the ability to be extremely succinct. Eifert, however, is not only
a photographer, but also a cultivator of various special areas of photography (e.g. diaporama).
Furthermore, his activity as a specialist writer — which has an exclusively photographic aspect,
as well as a portrait-writing strand - is virtually unparalleled. Furthermore, his suggestive
and productive work as an educator is also exceptional. He has worked as a teacher,
presenter, specialist writer and expert. And we have not even mentioned the uniqueness
of his contribution and truly steadfast presence in the organizational system of Hungarian
contemporary photography. In his own words: “Today, | am regarded as photographer (art
photographer, dance-, nature-, nude-, commercial-, and applied photographer, light writer,
diaporamist , expert writer, presenter, teacher).”?
Janos Eifert is one of the best-known representatives and defining figures of his
profession - of his art — both in Hungary and abroad. His oeuvre cannot be classified according
to any unified stylistic categories. He has always experimented in different directions; his
achievements in the field of art have always been consistent with his wide scope of interests.
He is a multifaceted person with an experimenting disposition, constantly reinventing himself.
He is an excellent photo reporter and a capturer of scenes from everyday life. He has been
a greatly influential dance photographer since the beginning of his career. His nude photos,
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