Bence Magyarlaki is a Hungarian artist born in 1992 and currently based in Paris. He graduated with First Class Honours with BA in Fine Art (Hons) at Central Saint Martins, London in 2017. His latest body of work has been supported by Montresso Art Foundation in Marrakech. His work was nominated for The MullenLowe NOVA Awards (2017), and The International Takifuji Art Award (2017). He has been exhibiting in Paris, Marrakech, Istanbul, Sydney, Lisbon and London with Galerie IAWT, Monterosso Art Foundation, Galeria Foco (2021), Martch Art Project, Jerico Contemporary(2020), M.A.H Gallery, PADA Studios (2019), The Switch Gallery, UX Art Space (2018), and Saatchi Gallery, Gasworks Gallery and Copeland Gallery (London, 2017) among other exhibitions.
Magyarlaki’s sculpture and installation work explore 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 twist 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
SOLO EXHIBITION
2021 Uranus Waiting Room, Martch Art Project, Istanbul
DUO AND GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2021 Montresso Art Foundation, (entre-deux) CORPS Residency Show, Marrakesh
2021 Galeria Foco, Amuse-Bouche, Lisbon
2021 Edith Baudrand + Bence Magyarlaki Duo Exhibition, Galerie IAWT, Paris
2020 Fragile Surface – Fluid Mass, March Art project, Istanbul
2019 In Linen, Memory – Teatro Romano, Lisbon
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
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
2021 Eva Kahan Foundation, San Sano, Italy
2019, 2020, 2021 Montresso Art Foundation, Marrakech
2020, 2021 La Folie Barbizon, France
2019 Third Base Artist Residency, Lisbon
FAIRS
2021 Abu Dhabi Art Fair
2019 Contemporary Istanbul