EXHIBITION EXTENDED UNTIL 24 APRIL 2022!

MAGMA presents a wide selection of works by the artist János Sugár – installations, digital prints, ready-made, stencils, transformed objects, films and videos – from the 1980s to the present. On the occasion of the opening the artist will create a replica of the work “Hungary can be yours” from 1983, which will take place on Tuesday, 18 January 2022, from 7 pm.
The public will have the opportunity to read for the first time the publication of the texts produced in the context of Sugár’s Time Patrol (Időjárőr) project, part of the Gravity – Moszkva Square exhibition programme in 2003, organised by the Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art in Budapest.

Sugár’s first solo exhibition in Romania was in 2009 in Târgu Mureș under the title If you do not provoke, power is invisible organized by B5 Studio / ARTeast Foundation, where he participated in further group exhibitions, most recently in 2020 with the exhibition Plugged – Unplugged 2, and in 2019 with his community project Fire in the Museum part of the White Night of the Art Galleries event series.
In 2014 participant of the Bucharest International Biennale of Contemporary Art, with one of his video work entitled MUTE, also shown in this exhibition. At MAGMA during Duet(t) in 2019, and Plugged – Unplugged 2 in 2021 group exhibitions were the public could meet several of his works, both organised by the ARTeast Foundation.

Rupert Sheldrake’s theory of morphic resonance basically asserts that there exists a yet-unexplored force by which past and future work on one another, and that everything that came to be at an earlier date – every first realization – effects similar ones that come to be later. This can be applied to art, with interesting results. The artist is the perceiver and transmitter of morphic resonances coming from the past. Creative work is inevitably in future time because there is no present time need, task, expectation, or command that applies to it. It depends solely on its creator. Since it is a first realization, it affects other works that are created later. (Every work of art involves a necessary redefinition of the concept of art itself – a thought attributed to Miklós Erdély). Art, then, is the model of morphic resonance that will be discovered in the future. – János Sugár

János Sugár (Budapest, 1958 -) studied sculpture at the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts (1979-84) and was an active member of the Indigo group led by Miklós Erdély between 1979 and 1986, then a member of the Béla Balázs Studio since 1985 and a member of its board of directors between 1990-95. Between 1987-88 and 1989-90 he gave a series of lectures entitled Alternative Film School with Miklós Peternák for the Scientific Dissemination Society at the Attila József Free University. In the 1980s he was repeatedly awarded the Studio Prize and later the Derkovits Scholarship, and in 2006 he received the Munkácsy Prize.
Since the early 1980s he has participated in numerous major national and international group exhibitions, including the São Paulo Biennale in 1991, Documenta in Kassel in 1992, the Manifesta 1 in Rotterdam in 1996, and, as a development of the latter, together with Yuri Leiderman, at the Ludwig Museum in Budapest in 1998. In 1988 and 1999 he was a fellow of Experimental Intermedia in New York. A selection of his films was shown at the Anthology Film Archives, New York in 1998. A list of selected solo and group exhibitions can be found here.
Meanwhile, he is one of the founders of the Department of Intermedia at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts, has been a professor of art and media theory since 1990, and has been head of the department for several years.
In 1994, he was a resident at the Cleveland Institute of Art in the Artslink program.
Founding member of the Media Research Foundation, which in 1994, ’95 and ’96 organized the MetaForum conference series with Geert Lovink and Diana McCarty.
Since 2007, he has been one of the presenters of Tilos Radio’s Alkotás útja, a thematic programme of live discussions and demonstrations on contemporary visual art.
His publications on media theory and his editorial work are both significant, two examples being Hypertext + multimedia from the 1990s (ed.), Artpool, Budapest, 1996 and Buldózer, (ed.), Media Research, Budapest, 1997. A list of his other selected publications can be found here.
Early in his career he was interested, among other things, in the interactions resulting from the radical fusion of classical graphic reproduction processes. In addition to his art and public actions, he has created post-conceptual installations, films, videos, theatre sets, television and radio programmes.

Visiting the exhibition is free of charge, but is subject to compliance with the epidemiological regulations in force, i.e. the presentation of a valid vaccination certificate. Wearing a face mask and keeping a safe distance while visiting the exhibition is compulsory.

On view till April 15, 2022, every day except for Mondays and holidays, between 11 AM-7 PM