Iosif Kiraly was born in 1957 and is a Romanian visual architect and visual artist, as well as being a professor at the National University of the arts in Bucharest. He is also the co-founder of the ‘department of photography and dynamic imagery’ and at the university, some of the courses he teaches are history of photography, visual photography in the post-photographic age and photography as contemporary art- concepts, themes and strategies. He has an extensive international exhibition record, and his works can be found in a variety of private and public collections. Some of his personal exhibitions in the past are:

2018 - Closed Doors, Open Envelopes, early works 1995-2000, MNAC, Bucharest/Ro

- Synapses, Borderline Art Space, Iasi/Ro

2016- Stand by - memoria impachetata. – Muzeul Tarii Crisurilor, Oradea

2015 – INREGISTRAREA URMELOR - De la Performance la LandArt prin Fotografie si Mail Art. Iosif Kiraly si Doru Tulcan, 1970 – 1990. Jecza Gallery, in cadrul TAE (Timisoara Art Encounters).

2013 – subREAL Retrospect, SALT, Istanbul / Tr (catalog)

– Fotografia: de la melancolie la trauma, de la document la monument. Galeria Intact / Fabrica de pensule, Cluj / RO;

2012 – subREAL Retrospect, 1990-2012, MNAC, Bucuresti / Ro (catalog)

– Then and Now. Between Layers of Memory, Castrum Peregrini, Amsterdam / NL

– Art is Concrete. Dataflow - Camera Austria, Graz / A

– In cautarea momentului decisiv – Galeria Jecza, Timisoara / Ro (afis)

2009 – Reconstrucciones ‐ Museo de Semana Santa, Cuenca / E, in the frame of PhotoEspana

– Mapping Berlin – Bucharest 1989 - 2009, Galeria Posibila / Galeria subCarturesti, Bucharest / Ro (poster)

2006 – In Situ Institut Francais de Bucharest / Ro

– Memoria, Gallery Futura, Praha / Cz

– East from the West, Galleria Artra, Milano / I (poster)

The project of his that particularly caught my eye was one called ‘Old people feel the weather in their bones’ while I was looking for photographers on a site called Lensculture that I use frequently to find projects or photographers that relate to my own work or a certain keyword. The project itself meditates upon the limits of photography as far as freezing time is concerned. It’s about memory and the idea of aging, each piece of work consists of an image taken in Romania during the communist years, from his family’s personal albums, and they were stitched over recent images that capture certain anatomic details of whoever was in the older photograph.

I was really drawn to this series because it compares the old and the new in a very direct and artistic way. It shows a family member of his as they were when they were teenagers, a way most of us have never seen our own grandparents so it shows a new side of them, when growing old seemed a long time away, and then it’s directly compared to a more recent image, that’s close up and shows the small details of aging, like thinner skin, or wrinkles, and to me it just shows how time can quickly pass away and before you know it, you’re looking back at the images of you as a teenager, thinking of memories as if they were yesterday.

Visually I really like the contrast between the two images stitched together. Firstly with the colours, the older images are monochromatic and are mostly very dark with a lot of shadows, while the newer image, is much lighter, with faint, almost pastel colours coming through, like the pale pink of the skin or the blue tinge of a vein, and I think it makes it very strong and eye catching aesthetically. I also like the contrast in the clarity of the two photographs; being much older, the old photographs are quite blurred and very soft, with no harsh lines or definition, whereas the new photograph, while soft, is very sharp and has a lot of clarity so it shows a contrast.

This inspires my own work because although I’m not focusing on the idea of age, I really like the idea of comparing the past to the present, especially with my specific model. For example, my grandad was in the army, and a redcoat at Butlins, and that definitely shaped who he is as a person today, so being able to possibly draw from those sources with a visual from the time itself, may make a bigger visual impact.