Bence Magyarlaki

Bence Magyarlaki is a Hungarian artist (b. 1992) currently based in Lisbon. He graduated with First Class Honours-from BA Fine Art (Hons) at Central Saint Martins, London in 2017. His latest body of work has been supported by Third Base Artist Residency, Lisbon. His work was nominated for The MullenLowe NOVA Awards (2017), and The International Takifuji Art Award (2017). He has been exhibiting in Lisbon and London with PADA Studios (2019), The Swith Gallery, UX Art Space (Lisbon, 2018), and Saatchi Gallery, Gasworks Gallery and Copeland Gallery (London, 2017) among other exhibitions. Magyarlaki’s sculpture and installation work explores the tension between architectural containment and the gestural, social body. In the intuitive process of uniting architectural and body language, the artist uses body memory as his site of production. Each shape therefore is an expression of a sensation remembered or revisited, often referencing the intimacy of one’s own body, or its relatedness and relative position to another. While the sculptures are made of hard casting materials used in architecture to create walls, separations and surfaces (concrete, plaster) the final shapes perform bends and twists alien to the physical properties of these materials. This softness and malleability is more than a trick of sensations. It is an invitation the reconsider the fixity of form, it is an expression of a dynamic capacity for movement or change. Instead of considering the body as oppressed by architecture – that appears here as a representation of societal control – the artist is proposing the body’s transformative potential within itself and on the societal structures that control and police its desires. The sculptures offer an invitation for a more tactile, corporeal relationship with the object of art and the viewer, themselves acting like social bodies with desires and repressions.

EDUCATION

2014 – 2017 BA (Hons) Fine Art – 1st Class Honours – Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design, London

2013 – 2014 Moving image and media design, 91. Stúdió, Budapest, Hungary

NOMINATIONS

2017  The MullenLowe NOVA Awards, nominated

2017  The International Takifuji Art Award, nominated

EXHIBITIONS AND FILMS

SOLO

2020  Foco Gallery, Lisbon

2020  Martch Art Project, Istanbul

GROUP

2019  In Limen, Memory – Teatro Romano, Lisbon

2019  Recreational Grounds, London

2019  S2 Third Base Residency Exhibition – Third Base Studios, Lisbon

2019  Capitulo I. – Auditório Municipal Augusto Cabrita (AMAC), Barreiro

2018  Open studio exhibition, PADA Studios, Lisbon

2018  Feedback group exhibition, The Switch Gallery, Lisbon

2018  Anexo 6, Lisbon

2018  UX deconstructed – curated by Carolina Grau, UX Art Space, Lisbon

2018  Instants Between Now, documentary film on Ines Zenha commissioned by La Junqueira Artist Residency, Lisbon

2018  Mapping Violence, documentary commissioned by #MoocLive Centre Virchow-Villerme in collaboration with Université Descartes, Paris

2017  Twilly’s Minimalist Playground – Saatchi Gallery, London Degree Show I. – Central 2017  Saint Martins College, London

2017  Big Space – Central Saint Martins College , London

2017  Painting Beyond Itself – 14TH CINEMA, London (curator)

2017  Film in Performance | Performance in Film – 14TH CINEMA, London (curator)

2016  Scriptless Film, Gasworks Gallery, London (curator and artist)

2016  Sound & Vision, Copeland Gallery, London

RESIDENCIES

2019  Jardin Rouge Residency, Marrakesh, December-January

2019  Third Base Artist Residency, Lisbon, January-April

FAIRS

2019  Contemporary Istanbul

2019  Young Generation Art Fair, Budapest