10 Treurenberg, 1000 Brussels
Nadja Massün’s exhibition invites you for an ever-exciting adventure, an encounter with classical photography. It presents you with the abstract power of black-and-white photography, and its capability for creating unprecedented worlds. But not only with that. Her photographs are also capable of preserving and passing on the condensed intimacy of each frame in a very compelling and sensual way. And this is one of the aspects that make her photography so unique.
Nadja Massün started her career with the exceptionally sensitive presentation of the members of her family, as well as the emotional, intimate relationship between them. She captured the events of her daughters’ lives in emotionally charged moments to show these in her photographs. The oeuvre born from the found moments and arranged pictures forms an organic whole in spite of the apparent differences, as the common goal is to capture the subtle glowing of our existence in the moment, the present.
Her focus has instinctively shifted towards the harmony of co-existence. Like the building that finds its home within the landscape, as they create an elevated sense of beauty together; the stills, in which the backgrounds almost embrace the subjects of the photographs; or the portraits, where not only the faces, the gazes, and the relationships are preserved, but also the miraculous uniqueness of the personality, or personalities, and the unparalleled character itself. And the soul opens up for her, and the involuntary gaze is present in each image, making it possible to show the magical substance of the presence in the quiet of her photographs. The world she presents is filled with subtle details, the covert and wondrously radiant presence of forms and lights.
The power of Nadja Massün’s artistic universe is not only present in the strong intimacy evident in her images, but also in how she is able to show us the magical nature of beauty. - Gabriella Csizek, curator, Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center
Nadja Massün Erdély /Transylvania, 2017
Nadja Massün
French-Hungarian freelance photographer. Grew up and spent most of her life in South America (Perú and Colombia) and Mexico. BA in Economics and a Master´s degree in Political Science. Starts working with the United Nations in Mexico City and then moves to Oaxaca, Mexico, where she works with indigenous communities in the Sierra Juarez and Mixe region. Although always deeply interested in and art cinema, and at that time living in Oaxaca – a city of inspiration for painters and some of the greatest photographers –, she initiates her formation in the Manuel Álvarez Bravo Photographic Center (1999-2006). Since 2006, after a workshop organized in Oaxaca by The International Film and Video Workshops of Rockport, Maine, she gets also involved in documentary videos. She worked on a photographic project about the Táncház (Dance house) movement, declared since 2011, Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by the Unesco, for being a model of teaching folk dance and music, and whose purpose is the rescue and transmission of traditional music and dance to younger generations, in Budapest and Hungarian communities in Transylvania.
