Human by Gábor

Human is Gábor Arion Kudász’s book on brick factories in Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, self-published in 2018 in cooperation with Faur Zsófi Gallery.

The hardcover has a dust jacket and 120 pages with 80 duotone illustrations, and measures 18.8 by 25 cm. It was issued in 500 numbered copies, and a second edition followed in 2021, also in 500 copies. Kudász lists the series as made between 2014 and 2016. In 2016 it was shown at FotoIstanbul, the Collegium Hungaricum in Paris and the Capa Center in Budapest, and in 2018 at Faur Zsófi Gallery.

In an interview with FotoRoom, Kudász said the work began in early 2014, when the building-materials company Wienerberger asked him for new images on the theme of the brick. He photographed the workers on a 4×5 camera and asked them to do drawing exercises and physical stamina tests he called “responsibility practices.” He also scratched and rephotographed negatives and added drawings digitally. In his account the brick stands for human scale, and the first brick marked the point where biology invented technology.

Kudász was born in Budapest in 1978 and teaches at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, where he headed the Photography Master program from 2014 to 2025. His site records that the jury of the Capa Grand Prize Hungary chose Human as its first winner in 2015.