Label: New York

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In-between Time – Adam Magyar

For most of my life I have been waiting for something really new and adventurous coming out of photography, and I am nearly 60 now, and it never really happened.

Early photography was used as an inspiration for painters to stretch the rules of classical composition conventions. Later, we see photography imitating painting.

There were moments of hope. When I first heard about holography I was excited, but when I saw my first holograms I was thoroughly disappointed. It seemed that the technicians who made these images had little or no affection with art.

The hologram was invented to show us the third dimension, and it didn’t pan out. Not for art. It did a great deal of good for tourist shops, though. And for official documents to prove authenticity, of course.

Now my eye was drawn to the works of Adam Magyar who in his very original way with a self constructed camera was attacking the fourth dimension: time.

Strictly speaking, his works do not really belong to photography, nor to videography, yet his works scream photography in every aspect of dealing with light, scenery and composition.

For an in-depth article about Magyar’s work, please read: Einstein’s Camera or visit the artist’s website, or even better: do both.

Below are three videos that will give you an impression of his work.

Adam Magyar – Stainless, 42 Street (excerpt) from Adam Magyar on Vimeo.

Adam Magyar – Stainless, Alexanderplatz (excerpt), 2011 from Adam Magyar on Vimeo.

Adam Magyar: Urban Flow from Matter on Vimeo.

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Herbert Gentry

Artist Herbert Gentry (1919-2003) made vibrant expressionist paintings of figures and faces, mixing global influences and African American experience. Referring to his childhood during the Harlem Renaissance, Gentry asserted, ‘Harlem prepared me for Paris.’ After completing military service in World War II, Herb Gentry returned to Paris for art school – and found himself in the heart of the expatriate American community in Montparnasse. Gentry moved to Scandinavia in 1959, but always kept a studio in Paris. In 1969, he returned to New York and became a resident of the famous Hotel Chelsea. At home on both continents, Herbert Gentry resided, painted and exhibited on both sides of the Atlantic. His work is represented in important national and international museum collections.
[ source: HerbertGentry.com ]

Looking at this portrait of Herbert Gentry with a friend of whom I have unfortunately forgotten the name I can see now how much I was influenced by American photographers at the time. The Hotel Chelsea looks quite seedy on this particular picture, but at that time this was one of the better rooms. There were cockroaches everywhere and Mr. Bard proprietor of the hotel had a hard time convincing people that ‘nobody ever died in this hotel’. Despite the deaths of Dylan Thomas and later Sid Vicious’ lover Nancy Spungen and many others. Although we have to give Mr. Bard some credit for the fact that most were pronounced dead on the way to or in a hospital nearby.

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Hotel Chelsea

When I was young, my biggest dream was to go to New York. I had read so much literature and had seen so many movies about New York, that I just had to go there, and finally I went at age 25 thanks to an assignment for a Dutch magazine to interview and photograph the legendary photographer Art Kane.

I also knew where I was going to stay: the Hotel Chelsea. Not because of the Sex Pistols staying there occasionally, not because of the Grateful Dead, Charles Bukowski or William S. Burroughs. No, just because of one Leonard Cohen song entitled Chelsea Hotel:

I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel / you were talking so brave and so sweet / giving me head on the unmade bed /while the limousines wait in the street

That was the life to live, at least in the perception of a 25-year-old photographer. I never got to see the limousines in the street. 23rd Street at that time was not a very classy place to be, but I did enjoy my stay there tremendously.