Oldal 17 [17]
PHOTO-CHOREOGRAPHY
Eifert’s photographs of dance, artistic movement and movement art — whose trajectory and
modus operandi have undergone significant changes through the decades - are undoubtedly
at the focal point of his art. In the initial period, he used analogue technology to shoot his black
and white photographs, which, in many cases, can be classified as intermediary between the
genres of press and dance photography. These images are characterized by a strong dynamism,
in which, as a result of a relatively longer exposure time, the visual effects of movement and
transitions create a suggestive experience of motion in the viewer. With the passing of the
years, as he switched over to digital technology, he had a new opportunity open up to him: the
“mapping” of arranged compositions. His increasing ability to create striking visual impressions
stems in part from the originally arranged (or virtually designed) photographic space, its
repertoire of tools, the arrangement and choreography of the subjects - typically female figures
— and the painting of their bodies. Further key elements include the “adjustment” of the beauty,
forms and light-scapes of the human body to fit the environment, as well as the composition of
hand-held draperies and veils into the picture, and the employment of complex lighting effects.
The other source of Eifert’s capacity for creating an astonishing visual world lies in the act
of post-productive recreation through digital imagery - his creative and incredibly inventive use
of Photoshop. The resulting images can only be stylistically described within the framework
of surrealism, and can - in light of its decades of history as a category — comfortably be
characterized as post-surrealistic. In Susan Sontag’s words: “That photography is the only
art that is natively surreal by no means identifies it with the destinies of the official Surrealist
movement. [...|Surrealism lay at the heart of the photographic enterprise itself: in the very
creation of a duplicate world, of a reality in the second degree, narrower but more dramatic
than the one perceived by natural vision.”"' Other works by Eifert along a similar vein include
his photocomposition Hommage a Janos Pilinszky (1983) - which captures a dramatically
surrealistic vision not only by the juxtaposition of fire and ice, but also by flashing a photo
portrait of the poet - as well as his photo entitled Dream of the Earth (1984), which offers a
striking visual experience by showing a human head with a forest appearing to grow out of
it. One of the now iconic compositions of this visual world uniquely characteristic of Eifert is
his Nude with Red Drapery (2015). | this tripartite photographic image, blown up to a relatively
large size (70x100 cm) and printed on canvas, the red drapery appears as a continuation of
the movement of a seemingly floating body. Digital technology makes it possible to visually
multiply the body, allowing for serial approaches even within a single photo (Nude Series, 2017;
Black Planets, 2017). The choreographed body postures and the series of photos depicting
them stand before us as a continuity of unique narrative images.
Around 2010, he created a series (Recycled Pictures), for which he used previously shot
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photos (1993) as a starting point. He then disfigured these - “rewrote them”, as it were, like a
true “image writer” — thereby creating a new picture. Let this serve as final evidence: Eifert is a
true creative photographer, whose photos themselves are creative works of art.
THE MAGIC OF THE NAKED BODY
Eifert’s nude photography is, of course, closely linked to his dance depictions and arcs over
his entire oeuvre. He usually works with female models, who are never placed in clichéd
environments. A key role is given to the architecture - typically consisting of walls, glass
panes, windows, in some cases, soft natural forms - that surrounds (embraces) the female
body (or bodies), to which various curtains, draperies, sheets, veils, and sometimes object
requisites, are organically connected. The artist always creates a mysterious environment and
lighting conditions suggestive of secrets. In the volume entitled Eroticon, which Eifert created
in collaboration with poet Istvan Turczi, Tamas Tarjan writes: “Youth, erotic playfulness, joy
of life, fertility, lustfulness, and doubt arise-burn-quieten into one another.” It is with the
utmost empathy and suggestiveness that Janos Eifert creates his series, of which erotica
and aesthetics become simultaneous essences. He accomplishes this virtuosic feat both in
black and white and in colour. In his black and white (grey) photo entitled Nude Back (2010),
his masterful skill is apparent in the treatment of the lighting, the positioning of the model; it
is the mysteriousness of lights and shadows that renders the aesthetic of the composition
complete. Embrace (1996, Sebesviz) is also a black and white work. Here, of the entwining
of the male and female bodies, we only perceive the passion of the female form and the
embracing arms of the male model - all of which radiates a unique softness but power as well.
In his broadly horizontal work Magic 2 (2012), the passion of the two distant bodies is linked
by a thin veil, forming a bridge of light between the two figures. Here, it is important to refer
to the conclusion arrived at by Eifert’s colleague and contemporary Ferenc Markovics: “On
close observation of Janos Eifert’s photographic art, one is struck by his virtuosic use of light,
perfect treatment of tone, and impeccable skill of composition.”
TASKS, MISSIONS AND UNDERTAKINGS
While the primary objective of this essay is to draw attention to the artistic values of Janos
Eifert’s life’s work, in his case, this is not possible in itself: his life and outlook are much
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