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2/3/2012

Mircea Cantor

Romanian Cultural Institute, New York

An exhibition co-presented by the Museum of the Moving Image and the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York

Seven women dressed in white walk in a circle in the sand, sweeping away their footprints. A young boy attempts to cut a stream of water with scissors. A crowd of Albanian demonstrators march through the streets holding mirrors instead of signs. A factory and its workers are used for the production of a useless product—double-headed matches. These are some of the simple yet memorable and evocative images on display in the video and installation work of artist Mircea Cantor (b. 1977, Romania).

The exhibition includes installations of three video works: Tracking Happiness (2009), Vertical Attempt (2009), and I Decided Not to Save the World (2011); a wall drawing; and a photographic diptych. Selected programs of his short films, which are often created from his own documentary recordings, will be shown continuously in the Bartos Screening Room.

Cantor won the prestigious Marcel Duchamp Prize in 2011 in Paris, which is fitting because his wry, conceptual work has been compared to that of Duchamp. Cantor creates images that are at once crystalline in their clarity, yet deeply paradoxical. They are concerned with issues of memory, history, oppression, and the futility—and necessity—of hope. While his thematic concerns may reflect his identity as a Romanian-born artist, his work is also accessible and universal. As he has said, refusing to be pigeonholed by identification with one nation, “art is my country.”

Mircea Cantor (born 1977, in Romania, lives and works in Paris, France) is a visual artist who has received wide acclaim for his subtle commentary on issues of contemporary society. Cantor's choice of media is diverse. The subjects that he tackles in his videos, installations, photographs and drawings or his textual works express a sharp awareness of the most brutal realities in nowadays changing worlds. Cantor's 2005 video work, "'Deeparture", which was on view in the contemporary galleries at The Museum of Modern Art, features a deer and a wolf together in a pristine white box environment which works to heighten the palpable tension. Cantor received the prestigious Prix Marcel Duchamp in 2011 and is preparing now the subsequent solo exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. In the last ten years, Cantor showed his work in numerous private galleries and public institutions around the world. Among them, Le Cedrac d’Ivry sur Seine in France in 2011 and Kunsthalle Nuremberg in Germany in 2010 organized solo shows of his work. Cantor's work is included in prominent public collections such as Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; MoMA, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Philadelphia Museum of Art; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain; Museum Abteiberg, Monchengladbach, Germany; Magasin 3, Stockholm, Sweden; Kunsthaus, Zurich, Switzerland, as well as in other collections worldwide. Mircea Cantor is represented in Paris by Yvon Lambert Gallery, in Tel Aviv by Dvir Gallery and in Rome by Magazzino. www.mirceacantor.ro

On Monday, March 5, at 6.30 pm Mircea Cantor will have a public conversation with writer, editor and art critic Steven Henry Madoff, co-presented and hosted by the French Cultural Services, on 972 Fifth Avenue. The event is presented by the Cultural Services in collaboration with the Romanian Cultural Institute and the Museum of the Moving Image.

Steven Henry Madoff served as Executive Editor of ARTnews magazine from 1987-1994, where he is a contributing editor. He has written widely for many publications, including Artforum, the New York Times, Art + Auction, and Modern Painters, and his writing has been translated into many languages. He has served as an art critic for Time magazine and held the position of president and editorial director of AltaCultura, a division of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He has also served as an editorial director of Time Inc. His books include Art School (Propositions for the 21st Century) published by MIT Press; Pop Art: A Critical History, from University of California Press; and Christopher Wilmarth: Light and Gravity, from Princeton University Press. He is at work on a book on the theory and history of interdisciplinary art. He has served as Senior Critic at Yale University’s School of Art and is on the founding faculty of the MFA in Art Practice at the School of Visual Arts in New York.

On Saturday March 3, at 3 pm, there will be an opening event for the exhibition. Mircea Cantor will introduce a selection of his short films, which are often created from his own documentary recordings. In Cantor’s hands, these captured moments become complex and suggestive. The selection includes The Landscape is Changing (2003, 22 mins.), Dead Time (2003, 2 mins.), Tribute (2004, 3 mins.), The snow and the man (2005, 10 mins.), Nulle part Ailleurs (2000, 12 mins.), and Double Head Matches (2003, 17 mins.) The program will be followed by a reception. The event is free with Museum admission.

Museum of the Moving Image
36-01 35 Avenue Astoria, NY 11106 www.movingimage.us
Continuous screenings in the Bartos Screening Room
Weekdays starting at 1.30 pm. Weekends starting at 10.30 am.
New selection starts each Saturday.

March 3–9 and April 7–13
The leash of the dog that was longer than his life (2009, 17 mins.)
Dead Time (2003, 3 mins.)

March 10–16 and April 14–20
The Landscape Is Changing (2003, 22 mins.)
(…) (2003, 7 mins.)
Dead Time(2003, 3 mins.)

March 17–23 and April 21–27
Double Heads Matches(2003, 18 mins.)
Ping Pang Pong(2002, 6 mins.)

March 24–30 and April 28–May 4
The snow and the man (made with Gabriela Vanga, 2005, 10 mins.)
Zooooooom(2009, 3 mins.)
Tribute(2004, 3 mins.)

March 31–April 6
The right man at the right place (I) (2002, 4 mins.)
The right man at the right place (II) (2002, 4 mins.)
Recycling(1999, 2 mins.)

May 5–6
The Landscape Is Changing (2003, 22 mins.)
Double Heads Matches(2003, 18 mins.)
Zooooooom (2009, 3 mins.)

Communication Coordinator Romanian Cultural Institute:
Stefan Peca, Tel: 212-687-0180 Fax: 212-687-0181 stefan@icrny.org

Romanian Cultural Institute
200 East 38th Street New York, NY 10016 (at 3rd Avenue)
Hours: Mon-Fri: 9am-1pm & 3-6pm

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