In the millennia of human civilisation, changes in art and in science/technology unfolded at a slower pace than generational shifts. The 20th century disrupted this balance as the acceleration of fundamental transformations in the work and artistic practice of successive generations has surpassed our innate capacities for reception and adaptation. These changes in art are also reflected in the five-year cycles of the Kunsthalle Budapest's National Salon exhibitions, revived in 2014 on the initiative of the Hungarian Academy of Arts. The previous photography salons successfully embraced the intellectual and material innovations arising from developments in the medium. The current, third salon is capable of this too: it presents the public with an inspiring cross-section of contemporary photographic art. At the same time, artificial intelligence (AI) places photography in a critical position. In introducing this aspect of the genre, I will revisit my catalogue texts written for previous photography salons, in which I addressed the challenges posed by change.
In 2016, I introduced the 1st National Salon of Photography with a cultural-historical analogy: “So what generates change? The transformation of society and the development of technology, new materials and new ways of seeing. In classical photography, a latent image was created through exposure, which the photographer first turned into a negative latent image under the influence of chemicals and then again into a positive image. This process resembles the myth of the principal operations of alchemy: nigredo (blackening), albedo (whitening) and rubedo (reddening). In other words, those pursuing analogue photography were able to maintain a personal connection with magical creation. The loss of this may become a tragic one. According to the theory of C. G. Jung, everything that the Western culture of the Enlightenment classified as an irrational physical process is in fact the reflection of a mental transmutation; in this way, Jung rehabilitated alchemy at the penultimate moment. What comes next?”
At the university, several of our scholar-painter teachers regarded it as important to introduce their students to the changes of the age. In the 1970s, we experienced the emergence of new problems in real time. Iván Máriási presented a radically new vision of art and the world in the R Club of the Technical University (now BUTE). We could sense that everything was being overturned. In what might be called a revolution in visual education, he showed us photographic material with his slides that placed us in a privileged position even at a time without internet. Back then and there, we were not significantly behind. Forty years later, I wrote the following in my introduction for the 1st National Salon of Photography: “Today, when image-making and image manipulation have become everyday human practices on an unprecedented scale, the act of image creation itself only rarely reaches a sublimated mode of visual perception. Digital photography openly reveals the illusory nature of analytical knowledge.”
Five years later, in my introduction to the 2nd National Salon of Photography of 2021, I mentioned the surge of smartphone photography, in the context that the individuality and uniqueness of photographic artworks, i.e. classical photography itself, had come under threat. “When it becomes clear that the billions of photographs, already detached from the traditions of image-making, exceed our capacities for reception and flexibility that developed during evolution, the protection of the classical values of photography becomes a matter of urgency. A significant proportion of image-makers have recognised this and continue to adhere to the values passed down by photography as an art form. Photographic collections, exhibitions and albums have attracted viewers to an unprecedented degree. »Art appreciation« can be profoundly rewarding. The differences between digital and analogue photography are often discussed. The use of screens replacing the traditional optical viewfinder has altered influencing factors not previously considered from a scientific perspective, such as the impact of the right and left hemispheres of the brain on image-making, i.e. the mental mechanisms of composition. Or the creative human capacities, which can be described with the symbolic pair of yin and yang. […] Photography is the Petri dish of thought; the use of this laboratory term may have been prompted by the need to remedy the negative diagnosis outlined above.” It was already apparent that the acceleration of a technological shift affecting all humanity would lead to a holistic transformation of the world. In this critical process, I emphasised that “…the key to the secret of artistic photography and to the increased interest in the medium lies in our dialogue with images, which the easily accessible photographs at salon-type exhibitions inevitably promise. The visual discourse realised through high-quality photographs may lead to rich models of artistic vision and creative image-making, which I described as visual wisdom. This is a process that both the public and the profession can truly celebrate.”
Today, after another five years, in a world continuing to change dramatically, AI-generated images have also entered the 3rd National Salon of Photography. Together with the curators, I invited Tamás Szerényi to write an essay on this subject. Here is an excerpt from his thorough and thought-provoking text, published in this catalogue, quoted to support my own position: “Perhaps the most radical change has been in the field of visual culture. The widespread adoption of generative processes has revolutionised image creation, affecting both the viewer’s gaze and the creator’s imagination. To illustrate the pace of change: approximately 34 million AI-generated images were produced daily in 2024. This is an astounding and incomprehensible quantity. Moreover, the unprecedented ease of image production presents new challenges to photographers, professionals working with images, artists and ‘innocent’ observers alike. […] One recent survey suggests that the majority of people are concerned about the long-term effects of AI. 59% of the respondents believe that we may lose control over machines in the future, while only just over a third (36.5%) are optimistic. The situation is no better when it comes to art: 58% of Hungarians fear that AI will diminish the quality of cultural content. There is a demand to protect culture created by humans, with a vast majority (85%) expressing a desire to better protect human-created works over AI products. While in most fields, such as IT, economics, law and law enforcement, AI is seen as an opportunity, when it comes to art, it is primarily viewed as a threat.”
Lupus in fabula, Szerényi asked ChatGPT about the role of AI in photographic creation. It replied thus: “The relationship between photography and AI is one of the most exciting (and most debated) issues in visual culture today. In short, it is not only a technological question but also an aesthetic, ethical and philosophical one.” The answer is cold and uninformative. As Szerényi also notes: 150-200 years ago, photography was condemned for bringing about the “death of painting”. Now we might say that as painting survived, so will photography survive AI. I am not convinced of either. Although art has been able to preserve the human creative force so far, after a celestial model, there is no longer any guarantee of this.
For this year’s salon, I have selected the more reassuring reflections from curator András Bán’s study titled 300 Masters of Hungarian Photography: “The 3rd National Salon of Photography at the Műcsarnok marks an exceptional meeting of two long-standing photographic “institutions”, namely the salon exhibitions surveying a given period and anthologies featuring numerous photographers in a single volume to present a panorama of the genre. In the early fine art salons, canonised art was presented to the interested, culture-seeking members of the middle class at various “ritualised” events (jurying, opening ceremonies, guided tours, critical reviews, etc.). Over time, when a particular salon was announced, current artistic ideas or group interests were occasionally expressed in addition to listing and canonising works. One such idea urged the acceptance of a new type of visual medium, photography, as an autonomous form of art. After heated debates, the Paris Salon opened its doors to photographs in 1862, although admission was through a separate entrance. […] The fine art salons eventually became purely commercial enterprises, with the exception of their versions renamed “national exhibitions”, which rose to prominence in countries grappling with their ideology, identity or peripheral position. […] Although received with some caution by the art professions, they nonetheless attracted broad participation and the same keen interest from the public. […]
The list of invitees to the 3rd National Salon of Photography was not drawn up during ad hoc brainstorming or a casual compilation of names but emerged from thorough preparation, especially the work that went into the substantial volume 300 Masters of Hungarian Photography. The initiative behind this book was inspired partly by a significant global cultural shift and partly by a unique local artistic situation. It seemed to be a moment both timely and meaningful to survey Hungarian photography since, in the digital age, our concept of photographic art is bound to change. […] What unites these three hundred names? Not simply technique – the fact that each of these artists records (or recorded) light directly onto a sensitised surface – but rather a shared, if not precisely definable, understanding of photography." I would add that in this way the Salon presents approximately 300 photographs by around 150 artists. The substantial survey volume and the Salon catalogue complement each other nicely.
I found passages running parallel with my own doubts in the study by Károly Kincses included in this catalogue: “One might argue, of course, that five years is but a fleeting moment in the development of an art form. In general, this is true. However, there are crucial periods when a new tendency, a new technique or a new visual approach can fundamentally alter the entire field, or at least initiate a significant transformation, setting long-established artistic canons in motion. We are living in such a moment. Image-making by means of artificial intelligence has entered public awareness, everyday practice and, gradually, artistic self-expression. It is no longer merely a new gadget or procedure but a mode of image creation capable of challenging the philosophical foundations of photography. Images assembled by artificial intelligence, generated in response to spoken or written prompts and drawing on tens of millions of stored pictures (many of them obtained without authorisation), may open new dimensions for artistic creation. The technology is still in its infancy, yet it is already making its presence felt and signalling its arrival. A salon exhibition of photography that seeks to reflect the developments of the past five years must, in my view, also address this tendency. […] The most sensible approach, therefore, is to regard AI not as a substitute for human creativity but as a tool that may serve it, opening numerous new possibilities without displacing the human psyche, emotion, intuition and imaginative vision. For it can be stated with certainty that there is no good photograph without a powerful vision, a coherent concept or a clear idea (one might simply call it inspiration). With this in mind, works jointly produced by artists and artificial intelligence form one section of the 2026 National Salon of Photography. This section seeks, as far as possible, to identify images worthy of presentation and to reveal certain tendencies, directions and, indeed, dead ends.”
Kincses also lists the principles according to which the photographs have been arranged in the exhibition: documentary photography aimed at social criticism, diary- like photography, conceptual photography, manipulated image-making and the work of archivists. As he also notes: “Although I have many reservations about images created partly or entirely with artificial intelligence, I nevertheless believe that a salon exhibition in 2026 that aims to highlight tendencies in photography cannot simply bury its head in the sand and ignore the rapidly spreading phenomenon of AI-generated images.” During the organisation of the exhibition, we have made use of the possibilities afforded by the spatial layout, and AI-generated images do not occupy the focus of the salon…
I would like to express my gratitude to the Hungarian Academy of Arts for its substantial support of the 3rd National Salon of Photography, to curators Károly Kincses and András Bán for their outstanding professional work, and to our colleagues for their dedicated efforts on this occasion as well.