Mac Adams was born in 1943 in South Wales. He lives and works in New York.
For more than 30 years Mac Adams has explored the narrative potential of photography and installation, composing and constructing mysterious scenes on the border of social norms. Potential homicides, victims and could-be assassins populate his compositions, held together by a series of clues, carefully and methodically left by artist.
The story and its fragmented reading is the essential element in the work of Mac Adams, a leading figure in the narrative photography movement of the 1970s. Whereas Conceptual Art and Minimalism accessed pieces of evidence, documents, and auxiliary information from outside the work, Mac Adams continues to reveal a story from entirely within the frame. Taking his inspiration from popular culture, crime movies, film noire, and mystery novels, he creates static fictions within a tableau.
Using a process that is cinematographic as much as photographic, theatrical as sculptural, he invites viewers into the space-time of the work. These frozen moments, like the space between sequential moving images, are imbedded with multiple narratives, speaking from an indefinite place found between what we see and what we know exists.
Group show with works by Mac Adams, Robert Breer
MAAT, Lisbon
March 12 - August 8, 2022
Solo show
Museu Oscar Niemeyer, Curitiba
August 26 - March 6, 2022
Duo show with works by Mac Adams and Dove Allouche
Sfeir-Semler, Hamburg
Opening: June 16, 12 to 6 pm
Exhibition days: June 17-26, 2021
Group show with works by Mac Adams and Cally Spooner
Frac Normandie Rouen
13 March - 15 August 2021
A solo show by Mac Adams
gb agency, Paris
From 25 January to 22 February 2020
Group show
gb agency, Paris
From November 30th 2019 to January 11th, 2020
Solo exhibition
Centro Cultural Fiesp, Sao Paulo
April 18 to July 8, 2018
A duo show
gb agency
Show from Jan 27th to March 10th, 2018
A solo show
gb agency
from Feb 3rd to March 25th, 2017
Art Fair
Grand Palais, Paris
22-25 October 2015
A solo exhibition by Mac Adams
gb agency
June 7th to July 19th, 2014
MUDAM, Luxembourg
A solo exhibition by Mac Adams
gb agency
From June 25th to July 28th, 2011
Musée Nicephore Niepce, Châlon sur Saône
Group exhibition
gb agency
27 March to 30 April 2010
Group show
gb agency
From June 25 to July 25, 2009
Solo show by Mac Adams
gb agency
21 April to 26 May 2007
Solo exhibition by Mac Adams
gb agency
9 November to 21 December 2002
Mac Adams
The Narrative Void, 2010
Catalogue
Texts by Mac Adams, François Cheval, Alexandre Quoi
Musée Nicéphore Nièpce
Mudam Luxembourg, Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean
Editions le bec en l’air
ISBN : 978-2-916073-63-7
Mac Adams
Mens Rea, 2006
Book
Texts by Gaël Teicher, Richard Price, Sarah Weeks, Yoann Gourmel, Jean-Bernard Pouy
Editions de l’Oeil, Paris
English / French
108 pages
ISBN: 2351370325
Mac Adams
Beyond a Shadow of a Doubt, 2004
Exhibition catalogue
Musée de Chateauroux
Editions Joca Seria
Text by Nancy Princenthal
139 pages
ISBN 2848090278
Mac Adams
Crimes of Perception, 2001
Book
Editions du Regard
Texts by Judicaël Lavrador, Yannick Vigouroux
English / French, color and B&W illustrations
ISBN : 2-84105-136-6