Exhibition · 2024

Touch Vienna & Touch Munich

14 February 2024 · Bewusst Sein Im Fokus, Vienna · 15 May 2024 · Spiritual Touch Tantra Institut, Munich · Everness, Siófok

In my own words

Can we photograph the body and touch without turning a person into an object?

Touch has been under suspicion for far too long. In Vienna and Munich I photographed tantra massage as what I actually found it to be: warm, gold-toned, unhurried care for another human being.

This is where my black and white finally gave way. Candlelight, skin, that honeyed temperature — you cannot tell this story in monochrome. For me, stating clearly that touch can also mean care became the most useful thing photography could do in this project.

Touch connects to the oeuvre through fine-art nude photography, representations of the body and intimacy. Tantra is a documented subject and visual context here, not a service claim. The central earlier archival chapter for this strand is Awakening — The New Beginning.

Gallery

Works from the exhibition

Two bodies lie close together in low light, one hand resting on the other's skin.
Two hands meet, fingers overlapping, against a dark draped background.
Two figures entwined, one lying back with arms wrapped around the other.
A hand rests on a reclining body, soft light running along the skin.
Two people lie close, faces almost touching, one leaning over the other.
Overhead view of a person lying face down on a round rug while another leans over them.
A hand draws a slow line down a back, heavy curtains behind, light from the side.
A hand rests against a standing body; skin and shadow divide the frame.
Overhead frame of two people on a white sheet, limbs interlaced.
Close crop of two hands pressing into a shoulder and back.
Two hands rest flat and symmetrical on a torso, the frame almost mirrored.

© Norbert Bánhalmi / BANHALMI. All rights reserved. Images from the BANHALMI archive, 1999–2026.

Previous chapter in the oeuvre

Touch continues from Awakening

The earlier fine-art nude chapter behind this strand is Awakening — The New Beginning.

Press & media

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Read how this work connects to its period in the oeuvre.

The work within the oeuvre

Why it belongs here

How it connects to the wider work

Touch Vienna & Touch Munich (2024) photographs tantra massage through warmth, touch and human presence rather than spectacle.

Period of the oeuvre

V2023–presentCommunity, education and public presence

Read about this period

Follow the related records to explore the people, projects and themes around this work.

Related projects and archive records

Period of the oeuvre · V

Community, education and public presence

This exhibition belongs here because of the question behind it, the photographs it brought together and the traces it left in public.

Archive overviewCommunity, education and public presence Press and moving imageTouch Vienna & Touch Munich Curatorial dossierResearch context

Artistic nude photography

Artistic nude photography, tantra, touch and intimacy

Touch Vienna & Touch Munich extends the artistic nude oeuvre into tantra, touch, intimacy and holistic care, using a dignified visual language centred on human connection rather than objectification.

Artistic nude — central project