With his first solo show at Mai Manó House and at an arts institution, photographer Zoltán Tombor offers a comprehensive overview of his work in recent years. It was in November 2019 that the artist moved back from New York City, where he had lived and worked since 2011. Known for twenty years as a fashion photographer, he is now featured at the exhibition, Light Therapy as an autonomous creator.

On the first floor, we present a selection from the series that was inspired by the year 2020. While creating this original material, the artist examined such feelings as isolation, confinement and uncertainty, studied the effects of lacking a vision of the future and often conflicting emotions. He cannot, nor does he wish to, offer answers or solutions to his questions: what are the things in our current lives that we can do without, and what is irreplaceable? What are the things in this new situation that have real value? The series is a quiet meditation, occasioned by the unexpected episode that was 2020, with the artist looking for himself in the upheaval.

Presented on the second floor is a selection from five years of editorial work, made mostly in New York City. This material reveals a salient connection between Tombor’s applied and original art. The images in this selection were published in prestigious magazines, like Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Time, The New York Times Style, and The Last Magazine, with such celebrities among the models as Shirin Neshat, Alicia Keys and Francesco Clemente.

Zoltán Tombor (1973) lives and works in Budapest. A self-taught photographer, he learnt the essentials in his teens, and has been a professional since 1995. Starting his career in Hungary, in 2003 he moved to Milan, working mostly on fashion, advertising and portrait commissions. In 2011 he relocated to New York City, photographing fashion for major magazines. In 2015 he launched his own annual publication, Supernation, which features his fashion and documentarian series. He is a member of the Association of Hungarian Photographers, the Hungarian Press Association, the International Center of Photography, New York, and the Professional Photographers of America. His most recent exhibition in Hungary, Homeward, was on view at Societé Budapest in 2019.

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