Flowers as an Allegory - a Tribute to Georgia O'Keeffe

Exhibition at Maleor gallery at Caeserea

Opening Jan 1, 2011. 11am

I usually create photographs on my own initiative. I conceive some basic idea and then I work on it until a new body of work gets its final form. This exhibition is different; it is a kind of a commissioned work. The theme is: Flowers as an Allegory - a tribute to Georgia O'Keeffe. I admit that I knew hardly anything about her beside the fact that she was the wife, muse and nude model of the famous American photographer, Alfred Stieglitz.

Then I learnt some basic facts about Georgia O'Keeffe. She lived for almost 99 years. She is considered one of the greatest painters of America in the 20th century. She is famous for her large scale flower paintings and desert landscapes she created during the decades she lived in New Mexico.

As always, there is both a Jewish and a Hungarian point. The husband and mentor of Georgia O'Keeffe, Alfred Stieglitz was Jewish. Her maternal grandfather, George Totto, was of Hungarian origin who left Hungary after the failed revolt against Austria in 1848.

In 1976 Georgia O'Keeffe published her autobiography. I realized that some of her artistic ideas resonate with me. I offer my thoughts about this exhibition as a kind of response to some of her statements.

"I simply paint what I see."

What is a flower? Flowers are beautiful, white and red, pink and violet. They have delicate scents. However, a flower is actually a reproductive organ of a plant. Its beauty is a kind of advertisement: Love Me! Flower decoration is routine but it is a bit odd too. Peeking into the intimacy of a plant.

"Nobody sees a flower, really, it is so small it takes time, we haven't time, and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time."

Photography is well-known for its special quality of 'stopping the time'. Thus we can have a closer look at small things or slow changes. This idea is even less in vogue today than in the days of Georgia O'Keeffe. The movie screen, television and video clips displace the static image. On Facebook one can have thousands of friends at the ease of a click.

"I decided that if I could paint that flower in a huge scale, you could not ignore its beauty."

I believe that there is a place for photographs which are serene and fair but also true and sincere. Indeed, it takes time to get into the world of the art. One of the challenges of the artist is to cause people to stop, look and contemplate the artwork. The competition for the attention span is huge. But the very experience of slowing down and getting to know something really is the gift the art presents to the viewer.

"I often painted fragments of things because it seemed to make my statement as well as or better than the whole could."

As a member of the artistic circle around Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O'Keeffe was influenced by photographers like Edward Steichen, Edward Weston and Ansel Adams. Showing small things in a large scale or concentrating on a peculiar detail of an object is one of the characteristics of their fine art photography.

I tried to follow this concept in the photographs I have exhibited here. There are literally hundreds of millions of flower photos, I doubt if there is a real need for some more. But maybe there is a need for statements."

I had to create an equivalent for what I felt about what I was looking at- not copy it."

In my photographs I try to express some inner characteristics of the flower, better said, what I feel or imagine about them. Flowers are well-engineered and functional, delicate and colorful. They want to impress. Sometimes they have defects and dirt, wounds and scars. They fight for their beauty. Flowers are evanescent, the moment they fulfill their role they wither and die. But in the meantime they share their beauty with anybody who is ready to look at them from close up.

Finally two statements from Georgia O'Keeffe, I cannot add anything, I completely agree with them.

"To create one's world in any of the arts takes courage."

"You get whatever accomplishment you are willing to declare."