Curious gazes were roaming over the unassuming shoeboxes placed in the middle of the table. The small studio space of Capa Center slowly filled up with excitement as people were waiting for their lids to open and the stories locked inside them to unfold. Since discovering that he is more interested in photos taken by ordinary people than pictures hanging in white cubes, Sándor Kardos Kossuth Prize-winning cameraman has been collecting everyday photographs (read our interview with Sándor Kardos here). Picking up discarded negatives from Főfotó, digging up photos during house clearances, and even ‘stealing’ some ferrotypes, the result of his nearly 40-year quest is the private collection of circa one million snapshots called the Horus Archives. Realised as a cooperation between the Horus Archives and the Eidolon Centre for Everyday Photography, participants had the unique opportunity to dive into two of the collections numerous boxes of photographs with the guidance of Sándor Kardos and Gábor Németh.
The many faces of photographs
The story of the Horus Archives starts with a particular photo Kardos came across as a child. The scene of a class of young boys wearing hussar uniforms and pointing rifles and swords to the camera left such a deep impression in Kardos that he recreated it as a scene in The Bridgeman (a movie directed by Géza Bereményi that portrays the life one of the greatest Hungarian aristocrats, Count Széchenyi). Several decades and thousands of snapshots later, the structure of the archive can be best analysed alongside the question: how can a photograph’s meaning change? The way photographs were once mechanically altered can tell us a lot about the emotions connected to them. Cutting off the cheating wife or burning out the eyes of the cruel captain are loud declarations of a change of heart. Other than a personal intervention, sometimes it’s the surrounding context revealing a shift in a photograph’s meaning. While pictures depicting armed members of the Worker’s Militia evoked fright around the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, the younger generations and the regime change have softened their harsh effect into history. Finally, the erosion of the material can also provide a new, unique perspective for a photograph. As an example, Kardos described one of his favorite photos from the archive – depicting a captain standing in the tranches, a crack in the photo emulsion creates a vision similar to a monster attacking him.
Magic of the ordinary
Flipping through the contains of the shoeboxes, the participants were essentially looking at a series of accidents. Slanted views, unintentionally pressed shutter-release buttons, over- or underexposed snapshots – the charm of everyday photographs. Unlike painting or sculpture, as Kardos highlighted, we don’t need prior knowledge or experience to create interesting photographs. Snapshots lack a rudimentary idea or a strict concept, hence contingency plays a relevant part in their creation as well as interpretation. This aspect can hardly be found in professional photography since it tends to minimalize or control accidents. Although everyday photographs inspired a number of his film scenes, Kardos admitted he could never deliberately reproduce their accidental nature – no professional can. Art education motivates young artists to master their medium of choice because intentional creation is seen as a key aspect of long-term artistic practice. While everyday photographs also have their own purpose, it fundamentally differs from an artwork’s; thus they provide space for a much freer interpretation that doesn’t evoke the need for prior experience or artistic education.
The tenderness of collecting
By the time the previously unseen everyday photographs of the Horus Archives had covered the entire table, a rather fitting question arose: is it ever enough? As György Simó, the founder of Eidolon Centre pointed out there are countless photos in family archives, waiting to be discovered and potentially added to the collections of public archives. Could we aim for collecting all of them or if we have seen a hundred or a thousand, have we seen them all? In Kardos’ opinion, the latter is more accurate. After examining a certain number of photographs, every other piece looks the same – but not for the collector’s eyes. Even the most unfortunate or boring looking photograph bears a unique, personal meaning which makes it impossible to get rid of. Beautifully explained by Kardos, these everyday photographs record a time, a place, a person out of reach, solidified in the past, never to be experienced again. Looking at them reminds us of the death of someone that once existed but throwing them out would feel as if this existence was completely erased.
This article is a summary from our event titled Horus Archives unboxing that was held on December 16, 2023 at the Capa Center in Budapest.
The article was created with the support of the National Cultural Fund of Hungary.
