Szabó, Ádám
Born in Budapest in 1972

Hypothesis is one of the most important determining factors of Ádám Szabó's works. He deals with assumptions influencing his sculptural and artistic thinking and activity. His questions and suppositions are connected to geographical, natural forms, living organisms, chemical or physical processes.
The nature of sculpture is determined by what the artist molds from a given material by physical transformation. Ádám Szabó realized that this feature can be observed not only in art, but also in natural environment, since the geographical transforming processes show similar results in the case of erosion, melting, deposition or any other phenomenon showing changes in form.
The artist's game with fiction begins where physics and chemistry end. The creator, relying on his observations, uses the natural reactions as sculptural methods, but places them in the human categories of humor and absurdity. His characteristic and elaborated works present situations, states and processes referring to questions beyond nature and art.
Ádám Szabó's hypnotic videos, photos and sculptures are not the ending points of a carving process, on the contrary, they state the arbitrary construction of shapes. His films played backwards capture transformations, where the cracked off stone thickens the sculpture instead of thinning it down, and his new woodworks place the practice of plastic surgery and his theory on beauty into the world of nature – he replaces the knots and gnarls of living trees with immaculate substitutions, corrects the flaws of fruits by sawing patches on them, and with all of these, he meditates on the meaning, usefulness and moral boundaries of sculpture.
Superfruit, 2009
Superfruit, 2009
Superfruit, 2009
Plastic Surgery IV/6, 2008
Plastic Surgery IV/6, 2008
Plastic Surgery IV/6, 2008
Skin Diseases I, 2005
Skin Diseases II, 2005
Skin Diseases III, 2005
Circle Radiator, 2003
The Little Warsaw receives the Munkácsy Award, 2008
Hen or Egg, 2005
Red Hedgehog, 2005
Plastic Surgery I, 2007

Biography

2009Munkácsy-award
2008AICA prize
2005Derkovits Gyula scholarship
2004The scholarship of fine arts of the Government of Budapest, Stuttgart
The scholarship of the Hungarian Academy Rome
2002Erasmus scholarship, Akademie der Bildendenden Künste, Nuremberg
2001–2004Hungarian University of Fine Arts, DLA program
1995–1996Slippery Rock University, PA., USA, sculpture
1993–1999College of Fine Arts, sculptor major
1991–2000Eötvös Loránd University, art historian major

Single exhibitions

2010Urban Forest, Inda Gallery, Budapest
VOLTA Show 2010, New York
2009FIAC, 2009, Paris
2008Smorgasbord, Inda Gallery, Budapest
2007 No holiday, with György Szász, Hungarian Workshop Gallery (MMG), Budapest
2006 Avenue Festival, Budapest
2005Play? (with Zsolt Vásárhelyi), Vadnai Gallery, Budapest
Künstlerbegegnungen, with Cristina Ohlmer, Hungarian Institute, Stuttgart
Ne ijedjenek meg, négerek vagyunk (with Ágnes Előd and György Szász), acb Gallery,
Budapest
2004Száraz tónak nedves partján, Studio Gallery, Budapest
2003When it Rains, Grass Grow', Parthenon-frieze room, Epreskert, Budapest

Group exhibitions

2011Art Market Budapest 2011, Millenáris, Budapest
New York, Rio, Tokyo, Inda Gallery, Budapest
2010Best Before End, Inda Gallery, Budapest
2009Stories on the Way, Holdudvar Gallery, Budapest
2008Processes, Videospace, Budapest
Time Print 08 Bruxelles, Hungarian Cultural Institute, Brussels
2007The exhibition of the Derkovits scholarship holders, Ernst Museum, Budapest
M@narchia, Central House of Artists, Moscow
Absurd present, Institute of Contemporary Art, Dunaújváros
Clockwork Paradise, Inda Gallery, Budapest
2006We/You/Together, „Oranzeria” Gallery, Oronsko
Tolomhunters, Parthenon-frieze room, Epreskert, Budapest
The exhibition of the Derkovits scholarship holders, Ernst Museum, Budapest
2005House of Future, Budapest
Discreet charm, Irokéz Gallery, Szombathely
Hermetic horizon, A.P.A.! Gallery, Budapest
2004We start a new page… KOGART, Budapest
2003 Aura. After the era of technical reproduction, Millenáris Park, Exhibition room D, Budapest
Plastica Dreams, Kunsthalle, Budapest

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