Márai Herbal

Péter Forgács (1950) media artist and independent filmmaker, based in Budapest. Since 1978 he has made more than thirty films and several media installations. He is best known for his “Private Hungary” series of award winning films and installations often based on home movies from the 1920s-1980s, which document ordinary lives that were soon to be ruptured by an extraordinary historical trauma that occurs off screen.

Since the early 1990s Forgács’ video installations have been presented at museums and art galleries throughout Europe and America. His international debut came with The Bartos Family (1988). Since then he has received several international festival awards – in New York, Budapest, Lisbon, Marseilles, San Francisco and Berlin, where he won the Prix Europa for Free Fall film in 1997. Between 2000-2002 Forgács was artist in residence at The Getty Museum/Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, where he created The Danube Exodus: Rippling Currents of the River installation. His works can be found in several museums and public collections. In 2007 Forgács was awarded with the most prestigious Dutch Erasmus Prize for his notable contributions to European culture. In 2009 Forgács represented Hungary at the Venice Biennale, exhibiting the Col Tempo- The W. Project installation. —forgacspeter.hu