untitled (photo)

"...yes, the lovely similes. People like similes... I always wondered when they said: 'this bacon tastes like almonds'. Why don't they eat almonds then? It seems, people aren't satisfied with anything, so to be able to enjoy things, they compare them to something else that isn't there, thus they realise that it isn't worth anything either."

                                                                       Frigyes Karinthy

You usually believe what you see in a photograph. You need to be able to explain a photo, otherwise, it can't be real, not a photo, a UFO-image, a fake, a 'well I don't really know' kind of picture. You need to be able to explain a photo!

Ákos Wechter – untitled (The Family), 100 x 115 cm, c-print, 2000

A scene after dark. A forest or a garden, a girl with a human skull, and a dog finding mushrooms. When? 25 years ago? 10 years ago? Yesterday? Who cares? Maybe it's a set scene. It has some meaning then, because then they do something if they want to demonstrate, even an artist.

Let's guess. The girl is the artist's daughter and the dog is the artist's dog, the garden is not a garden but a forest. We're on a hike in the evening. Who takes a skull to a hike? What? No! They found the skull.

Well... I don't know.

Let's say its all fake. The dog is stuffed, they borrowed it from a museum along with the skull and the girl doesn't belong to the family, she was chosen, her character fits well. However, if this is true then, following the logic above, everything has a meaning. The dog means loyalty, the girl means innocence and the skull means passing. The mushroom is the rising, hopeful future. It's still tiny and vulnerable.

No, not really. The dog is ignorance that is threatened by death in the image of a poisonous mushroom, and the girl with the skull is the posterity wondering about the deceasing past. And I haven't yet talked about the darkness that falls on them.

Let's narrow things down a bit. It's like an investigation. What we do know is that the person who took the photo (me, that is), is a contemporary artist. You'll need a more contemporary, looser explanation. More post, more modern, more pop, more hip, more hop. The compostition isn't set up, it happened by accident. There is something inside though, how shall I say...? It's good because without saying anything, spontaneously, it is about AIDS, party drugs, depraving girls, the whole filthy stuff that surrounds us. (The mushrooms represent the drugs.)

Let's widen things up a bit. There must be an unseen, fifth character. You realise this the way physicists found out about the so called 'dark energy'. Things don't work without it. The fifth one is standing behind the camera but it's not necessarily the one taking the photo. They're part of the situation. They're not in the picture, they're invisible but they control everything. A Conductor, a Helmsman, a Tyrant and/or a Father, God, Beelzebub. Fate. Get it? The point is, they are the masters of these pathetic puppets.

The good soldier Švejk said: "People sometimes forgive if you tell lies but if you tell the truth... no chance." Nevermind, I don't care. The girl is my sister's daughter. The dog belongs to my other sister who moved to Idaho (from LA! I will never forgive her.) The mushrooms are mushrooms and the forest is a forest.

I think Pista Gyõri gave me the skull. I've no idea where he got it.