Official catalogue text: A step beyond is about the poetic reflection of today. A group of the most talented visual artists, all members of the Hungarian Studio of Young Photographers/FFS, have congregated to express their notions of contemporary life in Budapest and beyond: Be these of a romantic attitude or a down-to-earth appraisal, be the artists already in the spotlight of international recognition or outstandingly gifted beginners - all of them have in common the unquestioned love of the visible world around us. With ease they will join the avantgardes of European photographic art - this sweeping and up-to-date show of their works shall serve as proof thereof.

Comments on the photographs of the exhibition A STEP BEYOND by the Studio of Young Hungarian Photographers (ffs) on the Occasion of the Month Of Photography 2008:

ALONG CAME ESTZER.
In 1984, a gap opened in the Iron Curtain: In Jim Jarmusch’s Independent Film Stranger than Paradise, Estzer Balint aka Eva Molnar takes a direct flight from Budapest to cold New York, looks around, carrying a suitcase and a blaring cassette recorder, and sets out to show two American small-time gamblers in a few weeks what real coolness is all about. Being of few words, but with a portion of unreserved affection, she changes little things in the lives of Willie, who is her Hungarian uncle Bela Molnar (played by saxophonist John Lurie who, with his band The Lounge Lizards, really is the epitome of the cool eighties – but Eszter had what it takes…), and his buddy whose character seems to be as washed out as the light grey, sunless film sky above New York, Cleveland and Miami. At the end of the story, Willie boards a plane flying to Budapest in an attempt at preventing Eva from going home. But Eva stays and Willie is on his way to back the old world – two versions of an open end, close to the zeitgeist and since then of great influence on films, literature, theater and photography.
With its dreary portrayal of the American way of life and of Hungarian immigrants, Stranger than Paradise left its mark on the Independent Film and influenced, then and later, the life of many young people, me included. The “slackers” and those without aim of Generation X are gone. Jim Jarmusch’s epochal achievement left an alternative impression of the USA corresponding to a melancholy and critical old-world point of view rather than the official illusion of unbeatable winners kept up until recently.
For me, Stranger than Paradise was the first semi-conscious medial contact with the people of Europe east of the radically separating ideological border. I first watched the movie when I was 16 and immediately fell in love with Eva Molnar, the female “star” of the coarse-grained black-and-white film, played by Eszter Balint who now makes fabulous music in the USA. Eszter is the Hungarian-born daughter of the brilliant Budapest theater people Stephan Balint and Marianne Kollar who ran the Squat Theater company in New York with a group of like-minded artists (see pdf version below for detailed annotations).

Initially, I would like to approach the phenomenon of today’s Hungarian photography on a parallel track through Jarmusch’s film since it deals, in a major side aspect, directly with Hungary and its relations with the western world and it’s seemingly predominant culture. Furthermore, a look should be taken at the neo-romantic traits which turn many of the photographs of the exhibition A STEP BEYOND into highly reflective spheres of emotion. Other subjects of this text are the varied concepts for giving meaning to the picture. Finally, there will be, after a detailed examination of the contents, a short and critical look at the form of the photographs.
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Download and read the full text (annotated) in pdf format.

Please look around the exhibition in a 360 degree panorama by placing your mouse cursor inside the movie window. While holding down the mouse button drag to the right or to the left to see the rest of the show.