Special: FOTOTREFF #ABROAD - Identity as/vs Intimacy

TALK

Identity as/vs intimacy. Róna Kopeczky was in conversation with Peter Puklus (*1980) and Tobias Zielony (*1973). While the Hungarian artist Peter Puklus deals with personal, intimate subjects – friendship, family, motherhood and fatherhood – and transcends them by conferring a symbolic and universal validity to them, German photographer Tobias Zielony operates in the opposite direction. He confronts the identity of youth and subcultures around the globe in an attempt to reveal their structure, their rites, their staged positions, occasionally grasping personal narratives. The talk focused on the way these respective approaches differ but also on the points where they intersect. The talk was held in English.

Tobias Zielony

Born in 1973 in Wuppertal, Germany, Tobias Zielony studied Documentary Photography at the University of Wales, Newport, before he continued with artistic photography at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig under Timm Rautert in 2001. Tobias Zielony is known for his photographic depiction of juvenile minorities in suburban areas –a subject he already set out with during his studies in Newport. Themes and social realities his research touches upon include structural change, migration, and drug abuse, as well as sexwork as shown in Big Sexyland (2006-2008) and Jenny, Jenny (2013). For Manitoba (2009-2011) Tobias Zielony spent time with adolescents of indigenous origins living in Winnipeg and the province of Manitoba, Canada. In 2015 the artist participated in a group show for the German Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale with his work The Citizen (2015). He had group shows at Bozar Center for Fine Arts, Brussels (2015) and the 2nd Montevideo Biennial (2014) and solo shows at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (2011) and Berlinische Galerie (2013). He participated in the International Studio and Curatorial Program, New York, and was awarded the Karl-Ströher-Preis in 2011.

Peter Puklus

Peter Puklus is an artist currently living and working in Budapest, Hungary. He studied photography at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Budapest (MOME) and new media design at the École National Supérieur de Création Industriel (ENSCI) in Paris. Currently, he is enrolled in the Doctoral School of MOME where he will defend his thesis in 2020. In 2012 Puklus published two photobooks: One and a half meter with Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg, and Handbook to the Stars with Stokovec, Banská Stiavnica. In 2016 Puklus published his third photobook The Epic Love Story of a Warrior in cooperation with Self Publish, Be Happy, London. This title got shortlisted at the Aperture/Paris Photo Photobook Award 2016. Recent solo exhibitions of Puklus include Life is Techno at Trafó Gallery, Budapest, New Works at Conrads Gallery, Düsseldorf, Unsafe to Dance at C/O Berlin, Berlin, One and a half meter at Robert Morat Gallery, Berlin and The Epic Love Story of a Warrior at Capa Center, Budapest and Raster Gallery, Hungary. The most recent and still ongoing project of Puklus entitled The Hero Mother – How to build a house received the Grand Prix Images Vevey 2017-2018.

Róna Kopeczky

Róna Kopeczky (*1983) is a curator and art historian. She worked as a curator for international art in Ludwig Museum Budapest between 2006 and 2015, where she mostly focussed on the site-and situation-specific practices of young and mid-career artists from the Central Eastern European region. In February 2015, she joined acb Gallery in Budapest as artistic director. She participated in the organization of the first OFF-Biennále Budapest from the beginning of 2015 and was a member of the curatorial team for the second edition of OFF-Biennále Budapest hold in Fall 2017. She is the co-founder of Easttopics, a platform dedicated to the promotion of the Eastern European contemporary art scene. She holds a PhD in Art History from Sorbonne University.

Listen to the TALK in our FOTOTREFF podcast:

Last but not least we would like to thank Goethe-Institut Budapest and Mai Mano Haz Budapest for the great cooperation and support of the first FOTOTREFF Berlin #ABROAD. It was a pleasure to make this happen with you.