Imago Winter 2004 [antikvár]

The Henkel Arts Prize, dedicated to photography this year, goes to Lithuania. Out of 179 applications from 16 countries the jury chose the Lithuanian artist Vidmantas llciukas to be the winner of this arts prize, which KulturKontakt Austria and Henkel Central Eastern Europe announced for artists in Middle- and Eastern Europe. This prize, endowed with 5.000 Euro, shall contribue to a better understanding of the région and the cultural area and have a share in European intégration. The Young Artists Prize for participants of the Artists in Residence program was won by the Polish artist Marze-na Nowak. . www.kulturkontakt.or.at CROATIA > Much Too Much was the title of the exhibition organisée! by the Croatian Photographie Union and curated by Tihomir Milovac and Vladimir Gudac. The exhibition was opened through November 2003 in the Zagreb Arts pavilion. The idea of the curators was to present different forms of photographie formai and thematic exagger-ation. "The 21 st century has undoubtedly been, assault-ed by, or even already obsessed with the phenomena of accumulation, suffocation with the absurd, trash, or with various forms of exaggeration" - is the thesis of Tihomir Milovac. With this idea in mind, Milovac and Gudac invited twelve photographers and multimedia artists to present their works. The artists' approach to this basic idea in different forms: from monumental size of photo-graphs to complex installation works, combined with video and audio background. In any case, this was a rather unusual and unconventional exhibition and fresh air in a rather traditional art-scene. HUNGARY > Exhibitions in the Hungarian Museum of Photography, 2003-2004: The DOFO Group. Creative photography in the sixties in Czechoslovakia September 19 - October 26, 2003 Group Dofo was the very first Czechoslovakian auto-nomous photographer-group that was directly in contact with avant-garde artistic style of the 1930s. In 1962 young photographers, workers and academie experts from Olomouc and Brno started to think in the same way about autonomous artistic photography. Their main aim, focusing on expression of abstract and absurd photography was in line with the main Czech artistic stream of the '60s. Techniques applled by them - often suggesting their photos graphical Influence - were not only helping the complete renewal of visual expression, but had direct contact with the main tendencies of fine art abstract expressionism, like pop-art and op-art. The exhibition also settles a debt, as thé photos shown re-present a not very well-known part of a neighbouring country's photography-history.