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Artist statement​

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Every collection is an attempt to grab eternity. A futile effort to stop decay. Futile, as – even if objects remain for millenia – human eons are only unrecognizable moments in the timelessness of the universe.To wrestle the unchangeable, the unreachable is melancholy itself. The kind of melancholy that every wet plate collodion picture carry within itself. Ambrotypes are like our consciousness: soft as breath, yet an incredibly deep layer on a piece of the fragile material. But if kept with care, it can live forever.

Photographing collections with wet collodion is such a Sisyphean, yet such beautiful task, as building and preserving the collections themselves. Unique pictures taken at locations dedicated to keeping our legacy not only capture the space, but also the spirit of the people, raising those hidden cultural focal points we only call „repository” – into pieces of art.

All of my ambrotypes in this series are 13x18 cm glass plates. I'm installing them in tight black frames without mats, to show what a narrow window we can only glimpse into the infinity of time and space.

Project „Legacy” is supported by the National Cultural Fund of Hungary

  

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Biography

 

László Gálos

collodionist, visual artist, performer

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As a creator, he explores the relationship between the subjective and „objective” reality. Testing the limits of perception and cognizance, since 2015 he has almost exclusively been using wet plate collodion in his photographs.

His photographic works has been displayed at fifteen solo exhibitions as well as at more than a hundred group exhibitions and festivals in sixteen countries.

At the same time, in his performative works, the reflection on the interaction of the physical and virtual worlds, and the investigation of their relationship is gaining more and more emphasis. Since 2018, he has been performing regularly, and his works have been performed in the Netherlands and Poland in addition to Hungary.

His video works have been screened and exhibited at festivals on several continents.

Every year since 2017, he has won the creative scholarship of the National Cultural Fund of Hungary. In 2017 and 2019, he won the main prize at the Szentes Nude Photography Bienniale.

He is a member of the InstArt Group, the L1 Independent Artists Association of Public Utility and the Association of Hungarian Photographers.

He works as a photo editor for Hungarian occupational newspaper Népszava.

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