Adam Magyar (born 1972) is a photographer and video artist.
Life and work Adam Magyar was born in Hungary in 1972. He began taking pictures in his late twenties, when he started wandering Asian cities capturing their street life in images of Indian street vendors, wandering holy men, and students in an exclusive Himalayan school. Obsessed with finding innovative new uses for digital technology, Magyar's work quickly evolved from conventional documentary photography to the radically experimental and surreal.
Among Magyar's numerous inventions is a way to insert motion into still images. In his attempt to comprehend the interface of time's infinite flow in the world's modern metropolises, he has developed techniques to capture, on a single visual plane, disjointed, fragmented images of parts of an individual or group on a crowded street. A theme that recurs throughout much of his body of work is based on interlinking yet distinct ideas and techniques that aid us to see the inherent beauty found in the everyday. His unique vision and technical abilities has inevitably led him to modify and even develop his own hardware and software. In his Urban Flow and Stainless works he uses the slit-scan photography technique, known also for use in photo finish cameras, as well as in other, often industrial, techniques. He uses a high-speed camera in his video series entitled Stainless, in which he captures at extremely high speeds densely populated urban areas. Magyar's work fuses the objective, even mathematical reality with the purely subjective, creating a unique fusion of technology and art.
Magyar spoke at several image festivals and conferences including TEDSalon Berlin, Bits of Knowledge, Adam Magyar: Photographing the Unfolding of Daily Life, Admiralspalast, Berlin, Germany (2014), TEDxGateway, Adam Magyar, Mumbai, India (2014), PopTech: Pop Casts, Adam Magyar: Photos of Time, Camden, ME (2013)
Solo exhibitions 2024 Stainless, - The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, USA 2024 Matter, - Eskenazi Museum of Art, Bloomington, USA
2023 Matter, - ToBe Gallery, Budapest, Hungary
2022 Urban Times, - Stephen Bulger Gallery, Toronto, Canada
2019 Midnight Moment - Times Square Arts, New York, NY 2019 Stainless, Museo Casa Grande, Hidalgo, Mexico
2018 Stainless, B24 Gallery, Debrecen, Hungary
2017 Stainless, Alexanderplatz, 3 channel video installation, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, TX
2015 Kontinuum, Julie Saul Gallery, New York, NY
2013 Kontinuum, Opiom Gallery, Opio, France 2013 Kontinuum, Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA 2013 Kontinuum, Houston Center for Photography, Houston, TX 2013 Kontinuum, Light Work, Syracuse, NY
2012 Kontinuum, Faur Zsófi Gallery, Budapest, Hungary
2011 Underworld, BSA @ CHB, Berlin, Germany 2011 Beyond Perspective, Karin Weber Gallery, Hong Kong
2006 Comearound, Retorta Gallery, Budapest, Hungary
2005 TaxiJam, Miro Photo Gallery, Budapest, Hungary
2002 Kashi Vishwanath Express, Miro Photo Gallery, Budapest, Hungary
Group exhibitions 2019 Preparing for darkness #vol3, Selected artists @ Kühlhaus, Berlin 2019 Al Obour, Saudi Art Council, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
2018 L’équipe du Festival Locomotion, Nancy, France 2018 Preparing for darkness #vol2, Selected artists @ Kühlhaus, Berlin 2018 Polylux, Mecklenburgisches Künstlerhaus Schloss Plüschow, Germany 2018 Preparing for darkness, Selected artists at Kühlhaus, Berlin
2017 Immanence, Pictura, Groningen, Netherlands 2017 Accentuated Reality, Faur Zsofi Gallery, Budapest, Hungary
2016 Envisioning the Future!, Saitama Triennale 2016, Japan 2016 Impact: Abstractions and Experiment in Hungarian Photography, Alma, New York, NY 2016 Infinite Pause: Photography and Time, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, TX 2016 Langoureusement, Association Light Matter, Metz, France 2016 Photography and Film Constructs, Ringling College Willis Smith Gallery, Sarasota, FL
2015 Laps, La Carreau de Cergy, Cergy, France 2015 Public Eye: 175 Years of Sharing Photograph, New York Public Library, New York, NY. 2015 Night on Earth, BSA @ CHB, Berlin, Germany 2015 Ideas City Conference, New Museum, New York, NY 2015 Look3, Festival of the Photograph, Charlottesville, VA 2015 Subway, Stephen Bulger Gallery, Toronto, Canada
2014 UNKNOWN: Pictures of Strangers, Transformer Station, Cleveland, OH 2014 Public Eye: 175 Years of Sharing Photograph, New York Public Library, New York, NY. 2014 Urban Spirit, curated by Dr. Katia David and Ágnes Lőrincz, Galerie Wedding, Berlin, Germany 2014 Megapolis, Eres Foundation, Munich, Germany 2014 METRO, Reinier Gerritsen, Adam Magyar, David Molander, Julie Saul Gallery, New York, NY 2014 Trailed Away, Gallery Soso, Seoul, South Korea 2014 Lapse, curated by Djeff and Fanny Serain, Vasarely Foundation, Aix-en-Provence, France
2013 Hungarian Art Photography in the New Millennium, Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest, Hungary 2013 Love Will Destroy Us In The End, BSA at Art Suites Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey 2013 Light of Day, Transformer Station, Cleveland, OH
2012 Breaking God’s Heart, BSA @ Liebkranz Galerie, Berlin, Germany 2012 Helsinki Photography Biennial, Helsinki City Museum, Finland
2011 Life as it seems, Faur ZSofi Gallery, Budapest, Germany 2011 Lens Culture International Exposure Awards:31 Contemporary Photographers, Gallery 291, San Francisco; Speos Gallery, Paris; VII Dumbo, New York, NY 2011 Young European Landscape BSA @ CHB, Berlin; BSA @ Galerie Wolfsen, Aalborg, Denmark 2011 Flashart, Whart, Toulouse, France
2010 Photographie Hongroise Contemporaine, Faur ZSofi Gallery - Institut Hongrois, Paris, France 2010 Separated by Daily Life, Rhubarb East at Mailbox, Birmingham, AL
2009 Defining Urban Life, Karin Weber Gallery, Hong Kong 2009 Art Sunday, Karin Weber Gallery, Hong Kong
2008 Jozsef Pecsi Scholarship Annual Exhibition, Hungarian House of Photography, Budapest, Hungary
2007 It depends on your point of view, Metro Gallery, Budapest, Hungary 2007 Bits, Bytes and Pixels, Island6, Shanghai, China 2007 Jozsef Pecsi Photography Scholarship Winners Exhibition, Hungarian Academy, Rome, Italy
2006 I Love LEDs, Island6, Shanghai, China 2006 Getting Along, Island6, Shanghai, China
2004 Press Photo Exhibition, Ethnographic Museum Budapest
Collections His work is included in several public collections including:
Light Work, Syracuse, NY Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO New York Public Library, New York, NY
Publications Contact Sheet 170: Adam Magyar, Light Work
Scholarships and awards 2009 International Photography Award, 1st place in Fine Art - Collage subcategory for Squares, 1st place in Special - Aerial subcategory for Squares, 2006-2007 Jozsef Pecsi Scholarship, 2004 Grand Prize, Hungarian Press Photo
References
External links Adam Magyar's website Videos: Stainless Videos: Array Einstein’s Camera Medium: Alone Together Adam Magyar: Photos of time Why Time Needs to Slow Down - Interview with Adam Magyar Ever feel alone in a crowded place? This artist gets you See Time Stop and Space Stretch in Adam Magyar's Latest Slit-Scans Seven Photographers Who Are Rewriting Street Photography's Rigid Rules