Ferenc Kálmándy’s private archives contain the documents of his oeuvre as photograph artist and photojournalist since 1978. Kálmándy was exhibition designer for the Janus Pannonius Museum in Pécs between 1976 and 1979 and for the Gallery of Pécs between 1979 and 1982. He was employed by the Hungarian Information Bureau between 1982 and 2012.
The photographic materials are historically relevant in part because they document performances by bands which had neither the opportunity to make records nor any chance to appear on radio or television because of the official cultural policy. The same factor renders Kálmándy’s collection of tape recordings important, as it contains recordings of concert performances that were never released or only released in part.
The oeuvre of János Vető represents a third possible model. On the one hand, Vető followed contemporary neo-avantgarde principles of photography, but on the other, he also actively shaped the Budapest underground scene as a documentarist and member of the Trabant band. His oeuvre is shaped by the tri-partiality of the objective gaze of the journalist, the personal commitment of someone giving voice to a sub-culture, and the aesthetical intention to create works of art.
In terms of these three possible models, Kálmándy’s position is closest to that of Vető. Kálmándy documented society, which encompassed the Pécs alternative cultural scene, new wave pop of the 1980s, and, in many ways, the Focus group of photo artists. He did so as an individual passionately and routinely creating images of the world, as a professional photo journalist, and as a member of the Focus group who followed avantgarde traditions (and other traditions).
Between 1979 and 1982, Ferenc Kálmándy was employed by the Gallery of Pécs, which was under the direction of the important avantgarde artist Sándor Pinczehelyi, as an exhibition designer. The work in the Gallery had a crucial influence on Kálmándy’s ouevre. On the one hand, portraits of his coworkers provided a typical genre of his photo art as a member of the Pécs Focus-group. On the other, the Gallery of Pécs was one of the most important centers of local underground/alternative culture until the mid-1990s. Several members of the exhibition designer team played in local new wave bands. These bands often performed at exhibition openings or at one-band shows in the Gallery. As composer Kristóf Wéber recalls, “We practiced in the cellars of the Gallery of Pécs, I just don’t how the director Sándor Pinczehelyi could arrange for this, occasionally the police came, but there were no serious troubles. Of course, there were sometimes parties and noisemaking, and sometimes windows were broken. The cellar was more than a rehearsal room. It began to become home to an underground club life, as more and more people came. After one practice session, somebody even noted that it was not even a rehearsal, but rather a concert, since there were more listeners than there were members of the band.”
The oeuvres of photographers interested in underground/alternative pop scenes are an important component of this history of these scenes. The attitudes of photographers who documented these sub-cultural spaces were not uniform. One template is illustrated by the work of photojournalist Tamás Urbán, who shot pictures on Hungarian rock events, pop festivals, and their audiences as an employee of Ifjúsági Magazin (Youth Magazine). Urbán worked with empathy, but also with the purpose-oriented mentality of a professional journalist: he apparently did not consider himself part of the sub-cultural spaces that he documented. Another mode was developed by János Kőbányai, who was educated as a lawyer but who was active as an author-sociologist. He recorded the lifestyle of contemporary working-class punk (in the vernacular, the so-called “csöves”) society using documentary photo reportage.
The oeuvre of János Vető represents a third possible model. On the one hand, Vető followed contemporary neo-avantgarde principles of photography, but on the other, he also actively shaped the Budapest underground scene as a documentarist and member of the Trabant band. His oeuvre is shaped by the tri-partiality of the objective gaze of the journalist, the personal commitment of someone giving voice to a sub-culture, and the aesthetical intention to create works of art.
In terms of these three possible models, Kálmándy’s position is closest to that of Vető. Kálmándy documented society, which encompassed the Pécs alternative cultural scene, new wave pop of the 1980s, and, in many ways, the Focus group of photo artists. He did so as an individual passionately and routinely creating images of the world, as a professional photo journalist, and as a member of the Focus group who followed avantgarde traditions (and other traditions).
The collection is interesting from the perspectives of the history of photography, music, fashion, and design. From the beginning of his activity in 1978 until 1989, Kálmándy’s photographs documented transformations in youth sub-culture, underground pop culture, and the art world of young intellectuals. The collection also sheds light on the modes of integration of punk and new wave music and the post-avantgarde art outlook and design into everyday customs. The photographs that record the ways of life of the underground/alternative pop culture (concerts and portraits) are a particularly important component of the cultural heritage of the 1980s.
