Gábor Arion Kudász was born in Budapest, in 1978. He lives and works in Budapest, Hungary. → His work incorporates documentary and staged photography in long-term projects exploring urban development, environmental issues and industrial landscape. → In 2003, he earned a photography master at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, where he still teaches part time. Since 2007 he has been preparing a DLA degree at MOME. → Arion received the József Pécsi scholarship twice, in 2004 and 2007. In 2010 he was invited to take part in the European Eyes on Japan / Japan Today project, in the same year he received the ‹Márciusi Ifjak› prize of the Hungarian Republic. His works were exhibited in group shows at venues like Musée de L'Elysée, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Aperture Gallery, and on festivals from Lodz to Pingyao.
www.arionkudasz.com
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Maps are beautiful and misleading abstractions of the landscape that looks incomparably different through the viewfinder when I am physically standing in it. → This baffles me, as most of today's maps are constructed using photographic images or the data stored in maps is visualized as photographs. The word ‹map› on Wikipedia, surprised to find something that closely matches my interpretation of landscape photography. → Starting with my diploma project back in 2003, maps have taken on a key role in the formulation of project concepts until this day. I will be talking about these ideas behind my work, illustrated through three projects: Transit (2002–2003), Green Area (2004–2005) and a recent work realized in Japan, Bonsai Land (2010). What these all have in common is that they explain an abstract idea by walking a path through the landscape. These projects were planned based on preconceptions and visual constellations I discovered studying maps of the area. Although the final work may be detached from the original line of thought, still the work itself is better understood if placed back into the original context of the map.
→ This work method led me to interpret the map as coded narrative, or the other way around, telling stories as an act of map making. A simple transformation is needed to compress abstract ideas into visible reality, somewhat similar to the famous Euler's analysis.
