Articles by Initial Letters

Interview with artist Joséphine Paul – whose large-scale, brightly colored paintings are inspired by Korniss Péter’s photographs. In táncház circles 87 year old Korniss is well-known for his extraordinary, striking often black and white photographs of life, people, then changes over time in rural Transylvania and Hungary in the 1960s and 1970s, ’80s and onward. Joséphine was born, raised and lives in Paris, she is completing a degree in art at the Sorbonne. Her father is French, her mother is Hungarian. She grew up in Paris with a Hungarian nanny. She speaks about her connection to Hungary, the language, the culture and visiting her grandparents next to Győr. She describes first seeing Korniss’ photographs on French television and feeling like she already knew those forms and contours. Fascinated by them, she began working from them. She was interested in what the photographs themselves communicated to her and didn’t feel the need to meet Korniss right away. Finally after an exhibition of her paintings and winning an award in March of last year, she thought it was time to make contact with her inspiration. Her correspondence and meeting with Korniss resulted in a collaboration which produced the exhibition at the Várfok Gallery in Budapest. Interview by Grozdits Károly.