The first of the portraits, to be shown as part of a programme entitled Picture Within a Picture, will be shown in two weeks. The channel aims to show 35-40 of the portraits, which each run for about three minutes, by the end of the year, says VIVA director Levente B. Málnay.
Already, portraits of eight portraits have been prepared, with one of Zsuzsi Flohr, whose photographs trace human relationships, to open the programme.
Many in the channel's main audience of 16- to 29-year-olds may view contemporary Hungarian fine arts with a degree of suspicion, so the programme has been dressed up in a trendy costume and sandwiched them between popular music videos, says programme moderator Kristóf Steiner. "A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down," he adds.
"Hungary's contemporary fine art scene is quite insular, so any kind of opening up can only do it good," says Ludwig Museum curator Anna Bálványos, who is helping VIVA select the subjects of the programme. She says that some artists are skeptical about the spots, assuming that, because it is television, they will be less than first-rate. She reminds them that professionals work in television too, and they obviously can put together a topnotch production.
"The programme is prepared with fast cuts, just like music videos, but we try to draw a picture which is true to life in the artist's own surroundings," says programme director Annamária Morvai.
The jury, which consists of Bálványos, Málnay and the art writer Katalin Spengler, picks artists "who are in step with the rhythm and the dynamic of the channel, and who can present a strong impulse from the start," says Bálványos.
Among the first of the programme's portraits will be ones of Nóra Soós, who paints everyday events, Gergő Kovách, a sculptor of grotesque and surreal figures, and Hajnal Németh, who borrows themes from contemporary fashion and music for her video installations. László Karácsonyi trained as a painter, but will show his sculptures on the programme.
Author: Roland Borsos
