Biography
2013., kormendigaleria.hu
Born 9 February 1943 in Budapest. His older brother taught him to photograph, and at the age of six he could already develop film and make contact sheets. On 2 November 1956, at the age of 13, his parents allowed him to photograph the locations of the Revolution in Budapest. He had to hide these images for a long time, but in 2006, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Revolution, exhibitions of these opened at the Műcsarnok/Kunsthalle Budapest, and the Ernst Museum, as well as in Vienna and in Washington.
Haris received his diploma from the Vörösmarty High School, followed by studies from 1962-68 at the Budapest Technical University, where he received his degree. From 1972, for eight years he worked for the weekly Nagyító (Magnifying Glass), and then for ten years at the Pannónia Film Studio as a still photographer. From 1992-97 he worked as a photographer for Teszt (Test/Quiz) magazine. At the same time, until 2000, for nearly twenty years, he did the photographic work for cultural and political posters, together with his graphic designer friends, and they were awarded prestigious prizes (e.g., in 1988, Poster of the Year, together with graphic designer, Péter Pócs).
From the outset, his career did not follow the traditional path: his images standing at the frontier of fine art, photography and film, and often transcending those boundaries, were generally the macro-enlargements of a minute detail of reality. He is happiest to work together with fine artists and filmmakers. From the late 1960s, he was present at the Szürenon (the artist group disillusioned with Surrealism and Non-Figurative art: “sur et non”) exhibitions, and at the shows arranged at the Balatonboglár Chapel – often precipitating cultural political storms. For ten years, his photographs appeared exclusively within fine art exhibitions, primarily together with the artists of the New Hungarian Avant-garde. Between 1973-80, due to the narrowing possibilities for exhibition, he rather made conceptual artworks or performances, either alone or with his visual artist friends: with Sándor Csutoros, József V. Molnár and György Szemadám.
In 1975, he produced his action series, entitled Jel és árnyék (Symbol and Shadow), and at the same time composed a sequence comprising 480 images, which is held by the Hungarian National Gallery.
In 1992, he wrote the script for his film, Az angyali követés (In Pursuance of Angels), which he realised with Ferenc Dániel and István Orosz. He became familiar with animation film technique as a photographer, and then as an animator he took part in the production of a number of films. He worked up a new process of photo-animation, which was first applied in István Orosz’s film, entitled Ah, Amerika! (1984).
A unique style and atmosphere is given to his photographs by the fact that through the enlargement of details, an opportunity opens for the viewer to decode associations and interferences, for a comprehension approached from philosophy.
Haris teaches photography at the ASA Free School of Photography. As of 2003 until its dissolution, he was a member of the Professional Advisory Board of the Hungarian Public Foundation for the Moving Image (MMKA), and from 2004 a board member of the Hungarian Association of Photographers.
In 2007, he was invited to be a regular member of the Hungarian Academy of Arts.
Since 1996 until the present, he again creates abstract photos from the minute details of paintings. According to his own credo: “These extraordinarily large-scale .. photographs are the manifestations of the infinitudes extending up and down from the world.”
He was named Balogh Rudolf Photographer (2001) and Demeter Award Photographer (2003). He has had nearly twenty solo exhibitions and taken part in many group shows, both in Hungary and abroad.
His works are held in various public and private collections: in Pécs at the Modern Gallery of the Janus Pannonius Museum, at the Hungarian Museum of Photography in Kecskemét, in the Hungarian National Gallery, the Municipal Gallery in Sárospatak, and in the Körmendi-Csák Collection of 20th Century Hungarian Photography.
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