Mircea Cantor Selected Press

41-41 :‫ שבת‬,‫ שישי‬,44-44 :'‫ה‬-'‫ ג‬,1111441-11 ‫פקס‬,2111111-11 '‫טל‬,2411116 ‫ תל אביב‬, 11144 .‫ד‬.‫ ת‬,41 ‫ראשית חכמה‬ 14 Reshit Hochma St., PO Box 35411 Tel Aviv 6135302, Tel: 03-6043003 Fax: 03-5444893, [email protected], www.dvirgallery.com

Selected Press 2015

41-41 :‫ שבת‬,‫ שישי‬,44-44 :'‫ה‬-'‫ ג‬,1111441-11 ‫פקס‬,2111111-11 '‫טל‬,2411116 ‫ תל אביב‬, 11144 .‫ד‬.‫ ת‬,41 ‫ראשית חכמה‬ 14 Reshit Hochma St., PO Box 35411 Tel Aviv 6135302, Tel: 03-6043003 Fax: 03-5444893, [email protected], www.dvirgallery.com

4/6/2015

Revista Arta ­ Lumea aparține celor care îi dau foc

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Mircea Cantor, Psalm, 2015, c print, 66x92

http://revistaarta.ro/post/40/lumea­apartine­celor­care­ii­dau­foc

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Revista Arta ­ Lumea aparține celor care îi dau foc

26­02­2015

The world belongs to those who set it on fire   Mircea Cantor (http://www.mirceacantor.ro/)’s most recent solo exhibition, occupying two floors in the new Dvir gallery space, looks into Israeli identity brands. The difficult reality overlapping a traumatic history is a creative source that allows Cantor to symbolically and aesthetically recreate the subjective image of the Hebrew year 5775 in Israel. Cantor processes vernacular Jewish symbols and builds narratives that simultaneously open various possibilities for interpretation. For a better understanding of the either exhibition, I chose to talk about the wall filled mandalas, made by burning dynamite powder. In the Kabbalah tradition the mandala has the role of guiding the viewer to the ultimate conscience, only found through contemplative meditation. The rhythm of the mandalas is interrupted here and there by gros­plan photographed palms in black and white. A preliminary conclusion: Cantor is observing contemporary Israel and is refining a discourse about delicate subjects without explicitly criticizing, denigrating or praising. He remains an apparently passive observer, neutral yet lucid, that raises questions and allows the viewer to further build following the suggested formula. He uses mixed media along with installations that strongly question the aesthetic potential of art in the contemporary era. Each work has a political as well as an aesthetic concentrated content. He has a perspective on society, mythologies and conflicts, choosing referential and subjective motifs that could be seen as defining for Israel. Placing all that in a work of art is a semiotic process that has been totally fulfilled. Everything is symbolic for Mircea Cantor: the matter, the shape, the way it is exhibited, the title. The dynamite powder, the shofar (a horn used in the Yom Kippur ritual), the Western Wall, the pyramids, etc. are iconic motifs than could reveal Israel. The works remain open and makes every viewer feel the need for a dialogue. I was intrigued by the Israeli map, written in smoke on paper, where Gaza and the West Bank territories are more openly represented as opposed to the rest of the state. The work’s name, The world belongs to those who set it on fire, is deliberately appropriating the facile mythology of present anti­Semitism. This idea is further explored in another work with the same title and technique that shows the world map uniformly smoked up… the world belongs to the people, those people who slowly destroy it using fire.    5775, a solo show by Mircea Cantor, is at Dvir Gallery (http://www.dvirgallery.com/exhibitions/exhibitions.asp?exhibitionCatID=2&contentCatID=8), Tel Aviv between January 31st – March 7th 2015. by Valentina Iancu

Despre noi (http://revistaarta.ro/page/1/despre­ noi) http://revistaarta.ro/post/40/lumea­apartine­celor­care­ii­dau­foc

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Colaboratori (http://revistaarta.ro/colaboratori) Conținut print (http://www.old.revistaarta.ro)

http://revistaarta.ro/post/40/lumea­apartine­celor­care­ii­dau­foc

Str. Biserica Amzei 7­9, Sector 1, București +44 21 3177959 [email protected] (mailto:[email protected])

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Selected Press 2013

41-41 :‫ שבת‬,‫ שישי‬,44-44 :'‫ה‬-'‫ ג‬,1111441-11 ‫פקס‬,2111111-11 '‫טל‬,2411116 ‫ תל אביב‬, 11144 .‫ד‬.‫ ת‬,41 ‫ראשית חכמה‬ 14 Reshit Hochma St., PO Box 35411 Tel Aviv 6135302, Tel: 03-6043003 Fax: 03-5444893, [email protected], www.dvirgallery.com

17/08/2016

Art Matters | A Medieval Romanian City With Major Art Talent

Art Matters | A Medieval Romanian City With Major Art Talent Culture By Zeke Turner November 12, 2013 3:25 pm November 12, 2013 3:25 pm

A new painting by Serban Savu, whose work has been compared to Edward Hopper’s, entitled “Unité d’habitation,” in his studio. Frank Herfort

http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/12/art­matters­a­medieval­romanian­city­with­major­art­talent/?_r=1

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Art Matters | A Medieval Romanian City With Major Art Talent

“Untitled (From the White Shadow of His Talent)” by Victor Man. Courtesy of Victor Man and Blum & Poe, Los Angeles

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Lacking a famous art school, government support or even a location most people can point to on a map, the small medieval city of Cluj, Romania, has become an unlikely breeding ground for the next generation of art stars. Two years ago, the painter Adrian Ghenie was in his friend’s studio, having a coffee with some former classmates — all Romanian artists and gallerists in their mid­to­late 30s — when it sunk in: they had made it. “I realized that Mircea was having a show in Salzburg, and Cipri, right next to him, was going to show at Tate,” Ghenie recalls of his friends Mircea Cantor and Ciprian Muresan. “We’re having shows at MOMA San Francisco. And Plan B” — the gallery Ghenie started with the artist­turned­dealer Mihai Pop in Cluj in 2005 — “was going to Basel. I realized I don’t have to go out to Paris or London to find out what’s going on in art, because we are it right now. And we were still in Cluj having coffee like normal people!” In the last decade, Cluj­Napoca, better known as Cluj, an Eastern European university town of about 325,000 permanent residents, has become an unexpected art world hothouse, its homegrown talent pool earning rapturous praise on the international stage. Ghenie is represented in New York by the powerful Pace gallery, and his work has caught the eye of major collectors, including the Christie’s owner François Pinault. http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/12/art­matters­a­medieval­romanian­city­with­major­art­talent/?_r=1

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Art Matters | A Medieval Romanian City With Major Art Talent

At two separate Sotheby’s auctions in the last year, his sales tripled and then doubled their respective estimates. While Ghenie and Victor Man are the best known of the group, success has come to each in his own right, as if lightning struck multiple limbs of the same tree. It was the Italian critic and Flash Art founder Giancarlo Politi who in 2007 first called them the Cluj School, in the manner of Dresden and Leipzig. Already known abroad for his 2005 video “Deeparture,” depicting a wolf and a deer left alone in a Parisian white­cube gallery, Cantor won the Marcel Duchamp Prize in 2011, which came with a solo exhibition at the Centre Pompidou last fall. Muresan, too, first gained wide notice for a video: “Choose,” showing his young son mixing Coca­Cola and Pepsi in the same glass. The work landed him a place in the 2009 New Museum show “The Generational: Younger Than Jesus,” as one of the world’s 50 top artists under 33. Last year, he had a show with the Polish artist Anna Molska at the Tate Modern in London.

Frank HerfortCluj’s most well­known gallery, Plan B, is overseen by the curator Mihai Pop (in coat), pictured with the artists Ciprian Muresan, Cristian Rusu and Savu. “I found it somehow miraculous,” Ghenie, 36, adds of the group’s success, coming from a state with paltry, temperamental support for the arts and a university with no reputation abroad. “This thing happened in such a short time from that place, which had little tradition. There was a month when if you opened Artforum, every three pages was an ad with a Romanian — and from really big places like MOMA or Tate to smaller, private galleries.” “Nobody bet on such a successful artist from this small scene — maybe one, but not five,” Muresan, 36, agrees. “This is weird.” Why this flowering? Well, the best explanation is the artists’ work and, perhaps, their work ethic, a trait they often attribute to cultural cross­pollination from the Germans and Hungarians who settled in the area years ago. Romania is still recovering from decades of isolationist and brutal rule under Nicolae Ceausescu, and this fall the country’s justice system began the first trial in decades of one of its own for abuses during the Communist era. http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/12/art­matters­a­medieval­romanian­city­with­major­art­talent/?_r=1

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Art Matters | A Medieval Romanian City With Major Art Talent

Twenty five years after Ceausescu’s lightning­quick trial and execution on Christmas Day, when most of the artists were in grade school, they retain a special brand of pragmatism, cynicism and dark wit. Their output — somber, intellectual, haunted by history and laced with gallows humor — reveals the psyche of a country sentenced to grapple with its past for decades to come. Ghenie’s thickly worked canvases depicting what look like melting faces have drawn comparisons to the work of Francis Bacon, but his titles making reference to pie fights lend the works a layer of slapstick. Muresan’s video of dog puppets evokes the human potential for brutality. The Romanian critic and curator Mihnea Mircan, 37, summed up their generation as “allergic to utopia.” In this spirit, they navigate success in a post­Communist environment, where for decades most any achievement required working with the regime. “I trust myself better than I trust others,” Serban Savu, 35, says, explaining the self­reliance he and his colleagues have developed. “Nobody helped us to construct the art scene.”

Mircea Cantor And Galerie Yvon Lambert, Paris“Don’t Judge, Filter, Shoot,” by Mircea Cantor. It’s mid­August, and Savu is piloting his black Volvo sedan through Manastur, the area where he grew up. Originally intended as a Le Corbusier­inspired modernist project, the green space between the blocks was filled in with additional units as Ceausescu shunted Romania onto an industrialist track and crowded peasants into towns and cities. Savu’s social realist­style paintings, which have drawn comparisons to Jean­ François Millet, Edward Hopper and Pieter Bruegel, offer gentle, complex depictions of Romanians generations on — agrarian families uncoupled from their homes and still uncomfortable with the transition decades later. “It’s our generation’s task to start building,” says Mara Ratiu, 35, a senior lecturer and vice rector at the University of Art and Design of Cluj­Napoca, where many of the Cluj set studied. “I’m doing this at my http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/12/art­matters­a­medieval­romanian­city­with­major­art­talent/?_r=1

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Art Matters | A Medieval Romanian City With Major Art Talent

university with my colleagues. Mihai is doing that in his gallery program.” She’s just returned from the Venice Biennale and is sitting in Cluj’s Museum Square, a cobblestone plaza in the old city. “I hate sometimes living in Romania,” she admits. “It’s crazy to live here because you have to deal with so many difficult things. On the other hand, what’s very fascinating is this pioneering work, the idea of building something.” With its centuries of history and culture, Cluj is fertile ground. But in 2005, when Ghenie and Pop decided to start Plan B, Romania’s second largest city seemed more like a place they couldn’t escape. Ghenie had just returned penniless from living in Vienna and Catania, Sicily, where he had begun doubting his ambition to be an artist. Ghenie’s brother introduced him to a friend, a stockbroker who had recently purchased a big house in Cluj with empty walls and offered him a tidy sum to help start an art collection. Meanwhile Pop, who was running an exhibition space at the university as a graduate student, was frustrated with interference from the administration. The two found a space in the city center with damaged parquet floors and called it Plan B. Then they used the money to mount a Victor Man show. It may have started as a fallback plan, but Plan B quickly became the catalyst for a new scene. Juerg Judin from the gallery Haunch of Venison in Zürich flew in to see Ghenie’s first solo show on the advice of the British curator Jane Neal. When Judin arrived at the airport in Cluj, Savu and Ghenie showed up late to pick him up in a red Soviet­made 1982 Lada. The work, however, impressed him, and on returning to Zürich, he mounted a show in 2006 called “Cluj Connection,” curated by Neal, presenting works by Cantor, Ghenie, Man, Muresan and Savu, among others, as a group for the first time. Ghenie’s paintings sold out, and Judin added him to the gallery’s roster.

© Adrian Ghenie, Pace GalleryAdrian Ghenie’s “Pie Fight Interior 8.” In 2007, Plan B was the only Eastern European gallery with a booth at the Armory Show in New York, and Pop took the reins of Romania’s national pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Plan B opened a second exhibition space in Berlin shortly thereafter. http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/12/art­matters­a­medieval­romanian­city­with­major­art­talent/?_r=1

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Art Matters | A Medieval Romanian City With Major Art Talent

After it lost the white­cube space in Cluj, Plan B joined with the nonprofit gallery Sabot in 2009 to renovate an old paintbrush factory in the light industrial district close to the city’s center. They envisioned a complex of performance spaces and studios. “It’s a factory, and I really feel that I am coming here as a worker,” says Daria Dumitrescu, 36, the gallerist running Sabot. When the Paintbrush Factory opened in October 2009, more than 1,000 locals from Cluj turned out to see what the artists and gallerists there were up to. Cluj’s artists tend to share a pessimistic streak, and as a result, they seem primed for their moment in the spotlight to elapse, but seven years after the original Cluj coming­out in Zürich, the city continues to draw interest. At the end of 2012, Cluj was included in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art show “Six Lines of Flight: Shifting Geographies in Contemporary Art.” Until January, Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton in Paris is showing artists from Cluj as part of the show “Romanian Scenes,” and the Arken Museum of Modern Art outside Copenhagen just concluded a show called “Hotspot Cluj — New Romanian Art.” Phaidon included Cluj in a new book published in September, “Art Cities of the Future,” alongside the likes of São Paulo and Istanbul, metropolises 30 and 40 times its size. It’s a frantic pace, and the gallerist Pop, 39, can’t help wondering how long Cluj will hold onto its stars. Cantor has long worked out of Paris, for instance, and Ghenie is spending more time at his studio in Berlin. Pop is also preparing for the moment when the art world’s eyes shift to the next big thing. “The shows about Cluj, I find them O.K., but I know quite soon they will be gone,” he says, sitting on a bench at the botanical garden on one of the hills overlooking the city. “The people who are organizing these shows, they like to map territories,” he adds. “And when they already know who’s good, who’s not, they go further to map another territory and another territory.” “In our case in the East, it’s important to constitute something,” Pop continues. “From the very beginning the idea was that if we open Plan B, it will be a long­term project. In the West, everyone is always asking you ‘What’s your next project? And what comes next? Next, next!’ There’s no next. Next is to sustain yesterday’s project.” A version of this article appears in print on 11/17/2013, on page M282 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Traction in Transylvania.

http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/12/art­matters­a­medieval­romanian­city­with­major­art­talent/?_r=1

11/11

Selected Press 2011

41-41 :‫ שבת‬,‫ שישי‬,44-44 :'‫ה‬-'‫ ג‬,1111441-11 ‫פקס‬,2111111-11 '‫טל‬,2411116 ‫ תל אביב‬, 11144 .‫ד‬.‫ ת‬,41 ‫ראשית חכמה‬ 14 Reshit Hochma St., PO Box 35411 Tel Aviv 6135302, Tel: 03-6043003 Fax: 03-5444893, [email protected], www.dvirgallery.com

artinfo "My Country Is Art": A Q&A With Conceptual Artist Mircea Cantor, Winner of the 2011 Duchamp Prize

by Grégory Picard, ARTINFO France Published: November 10, 2011

This year’s Marcel Duchamp Prize — which is presented at the FIAC art fair every year to an artist working in France — has been awarded to Mircea Cantor, whose work is startling, mysterious, and intense, using symbol-objects with strong personalities to construct a completely new language. His installations have an immediate power to release a strong emotional charge, as if echoing the world, while still avoiding any definitive reading. GalleristYvon Lambert brought Cantor’s “Fishing Flies” to FIAC — a strange mobile of miniature planes made of soda can, suspended with golden hooks on a fishing net. Despite an almost cheerful appearance, the world’s violence is visible here, condensed in these dozens of sharp,

colorful

objects,

both

prey

and

predator.

Cantor

also

has

solo

shows

at Crédac (the Ivry Contemporary Art Center outside Paris) and at the Kunstverein in Salzburg. Recently, ARTINFO France spoke to the artist about the Marcel Duchamp Prize, the significance of fishing, and why he doesn’t like being called a Romanian artist.

13-16 :‫ שבת‬,‫ שישי‬,11-14 :'‫ה‬-'‫ ג‬,36-5000446 ‫פקס‬,36-3306336 '‫טל‬,36536 ‫תל אביב‬,11 ‫נחום‬ 11 Nahum St., Tel Aviv 63503, Tel: 03-6043003 Fax: 03-5444893, [email protected], www.dvirgallery.com

What does winning the Marcel Duchamp Prize mean to you? Critics have sometimes compared your art to that of Duchamp. I don’t know why people associate us. Maybe it’s the job of critics, people who give grades. For me, the Marcel Duchamp Prize is an important award — it’s the biggest prize in France for contemporary art. It’s an honor to receive it, and it required a concentration, a focus on my work, which is not insignificant in my artistic development. I also won the Ricard Prize in 2004, which also highlights an artist’s body of work, starting at its beginnings. How is the piece “Fishing Flies,” which you showed at FIAC, related to “Fishing Fly” in your solo show at Crédac? The entire installation at FIAC takes up the theme of fishing, which is part of my current concerns and artistic process. Clearly, I am presenting it on a different scale. Right now there’s another installation that I’m presenting at the Kunstverein in Salzburg, which takes up this idea of fishing, with a fishing pole and text in neon that reads “Phishing for other people’s money, gods, time, love, life.” But all this is written in Chinese. Fishing is a central theme in my current work, related to what it implies in our life, in our vocabularies. Fishing evokes the image of the fish. In English, the word “hooker” is used for prostitutes, the equivalent of French “maquereau” [which means “pimp” and also “mackerel”]. On the Internet, we talk about people “phishing” email addresses. All these questions are found in the work I’m showing at Crédac, in the work that won the Marcel Duchamp Prize, and in this show in Austria. These are questions connected to lying in general, but also in very intimate terms, in the relationship to the other. These different formats — planes made of oil drums or soda cans — are part of a group of tools to talk about that subject. Still, there is a clear political dimension to these pieces. The imagery of the war plane is quite strong, as is that of the oil barrel or the soda can. The viewer might think of the relations between the Northern and Southern hemispheres, or the excesses of consumer society. Maybe, but I don’t latch on to those connotations. I’m not criticizing consumer society. These objects are work tools. For me, the planes are primarily war planes, which show a reality that we’re confronted with every day. In the piece at Crédac, the fact that there is this oil barrel raises doubts about the legitimacy of violence. Very literally, this violence is that of war — but it’s also the violence that exists in the relations between the self and the other. Why did you show the video “Vertical Attempt” alongside the fishing installation? “Vertical Attempt” is a very strong piece that I made about the idea of courage. What interests me is this idea of crazy courage, as seen in a child trying to cut a stream of water. It’s an image 13-16 :‫ שבת‬,‫ שישי‬,11-14 :'‫ה‬-'‫ ג‬,36-5000446 ‫פקס‬,36-3306336 '‫טל‬,36536 ‫תל אביב‬,11 ‫נחום‬ 11 Nahum St., Tel Aviv 63503, Tel: 03-6043003 Fax: 03-5444893, [email protected], www.dvirgallery.com

that is almost iconic for me. It speaks of what we are trying to do as artists: to attempt the impossible. This video shows the crazy courage that we should all have, in everything. Taking this image in the form of a video was very important. It’s an intuition, a necessity that establishes itself in relation to the question: “What message should I transmit, with which medium?” It’s as if the idea cried out: “I want this form!” Your works have often been called visual haikus. Your pieces are very poetic and also direct. The signs that you use are very evident, although they can escape interpretation. Is there an important place in your art for losing one’s bearings, for ambiguity? On the contrary, I am there to indicate one’s bearings, not to make them get lost. In the haiku, there is also this idea of instantaneity, which synchronizes today with this society that’s about “quick, on to the next one.” People must always be on the verge of noticing something — they can’t miss anything. This synchronization, with this form of expression, is incredible — why not use it? For “Vertical Attempt,” for example, in the middle of a thousand images, a thousand ads, a thousand bits of information, all of a sudden you see this boy who is trying to cut the stream of water. That’s what makes things so disturbing, and so powerful. It enters an imaginary world which begins to haunt you. This image remains quite objective. Stripped of all its interpretations, it remains the image of the boy who cuts the stream of water, and that can’t be associated with anything else. Critics sometimes highlight the fact that you grew up in Romania. Does your cultural heritage have particular resonance in your work? For example, in the piece “Like Birds on a High Voltage Wire,” you used traditional Romanian wooden spoons. It’s already hard enough to accept oneself as an artist. As an artist, period. According to René Daumal, art is the accomplishment of knowledge in action. In that sense, really doing art is a great responsibility. So whether this art is political, Romanian, French, British, etc. — for me it doesn’t make any sense. On my c.v., I say that I live and work on Earth, to show the generosity that the world offers us today, to be able to travel, meet people of all nationalities, religions, or social class. Libération wrote about me as a “French artist of Romanian origin.” That’s OK with me, but I would like them to look closer at my work. Take the example of the great Picasso, who worked intensely on African masks. What was the connection between Picasso and the African mask? What cultural content can you look for that he used? And the avant-garde artists inspired by antiquity, are you going to call them Greek? This indicates a certain superficiality of the media in relation to the artwork. Concerning “Like Birds on a High Voltage Wire,” no one said that the other spoons, the silver ones, had all been purchased at the Zurich flea market. We know who we are, so why not go 13-16 :‫ שבת‬,‫ שישי‬,11-14 :'‫ה‬-'‫ ג‬,36-5000446 ‫פקס‬,36-3306336 '‫טל‬,36536 ‫תל אביב‬,11 ‫נחום‬ 11 Nahum St., Tel Aviv 63503, Tel: 03-6043003 Fax: 03-5444893, [email protected], www.dvirgallery.com

deeper? Let’s stand for something other than our nationality. Instead of talking about a Romanian artist, let’s try to see what this artist has to say to us. The cultural heritage is there, I’m very proud of it. But I’ve lived in France for 12 years. I can’t reject my past. I come from somewhere and there are things that influence me, but the question is: how am I going to take this accumulation: being from Romania and living in France? What do I want to do with this? It’s like my “Double Heads Matches,” for example, which I made in 2002-2003. It develops in the most private things, not by standing on a soapbox, putting your hand on your heart and saying, “I am Romanian.” I don’t do art for the pleasure of making exotic art. I use things that come from Romania, and I can also use cans that come from Senegal for one piece and cans that were transformed in the streets of Paris for another piece, as well as working with English and French craftspeople — these objects speak of the great openness in which we can live today, beyond national categories. My country is art. What are you currently working on? I have plans through 2013 or 2014. My next show will be at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens. Then I’ll show my work at the MACRO in Rome. Afterwards there will be a solo show in Wales, and then the Pompidou Center in fall 2012. I don’t know yet what I’ll show there. For the moment, I’m catching my breath.

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Art Press / Novembre 2011

Romanian-born artist Mircea Cantor wins Marcel-Duchamp prize in France LIFE & ENTERTAINMENT | IRINA POPESCU | OCTOBER 24, 2011 AT 1:13 PM

Romanian-born artist Mircea Cantor, who currently lives and works in Paris, France, has won the Marcel-Duchamp prize at the 38th edition of the International Contemporary Art Fair (FIAC) in France. The Romanian artist received this award for “Fishing Flies”, a sculpture made of decorated harpoons attached to planes made of metal containers, nylon wire, fishing nets and bamboo. Mircea Cantor succeeds Cyprien Gaillard, the winner of this award in 2010. The Romanian artist is invited by the Pompidou Centre to present a solo exhibition for three months in the fall of 2012. Mircea Cantor was born in 1977 in Oradea, Romania. In 2004 he won the Paul Richard prize in Paris, while in 2008 he was nominated for Artes Mundi Prize in Wales. This year he also won the Best Dance Short Film award at the Tiburon International Film Festival in California. Read more about him here. Irina Popescu, [email protected] (photo source: Mirceacantor.ro)

La Maison Française, the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York, and the Embassy of Romania to the U.S., are proud to present, in the framework of the 2011 Francophonie Cultural Festival, the U.S. premiere of an exhibition of northern Romanian (Maramureş) handcrafted rugs, from March 28th to April 15th, 2011. In the region of Maramureş traditional handcrafts are still very much alive today; you can find authentic woodcarving, pottery and wool crafting. This show presents some of the most enchanting rugs made by Victoria Berbecaru over four decades, some of them still being used at the local church. The exhibition was initiated and curated by the Romanian (Paris-based) artist Mircea Cantor, whose work is known for its subtle commentary on contemporary society, across diverse media. His approach is not that of an ethnographer or anthropologist. The object is not to document, but to emphasize the authenticity of this art, giving viewers an opportunity to enjoy the pieces, as they would any work of art. Victoria Berbecaru, one of Maramureş’ most accomplished weavers, revived the tradition of weaving rugs in the 70’s when she arrived in Botiza, a village in Maramureş. Together with the old ladies from the village she started to record the old techniques of natural dyeing, reintroducing motifs that were in use in the recent past but were about to disappear due to the lack of interest and continuity through the younger generation. She maintained this tradition for over four decades by helping younger women see its profound cultural value and by teaching them the compositions and motifs. “Looking at an authentic Maramureş rug,” says Mircea Cantor, “resembles eating jelly from grandmother’s larder. It spreads both energy and visual force hidden within its ancient symbols, as well as forms crossing over time, generation by generation until the present day. Its themes and motives are inspired by the labor on the fields, by religious or agrarian feasts and by different customs and beliefs. Their composition and choice of colors offer them their strength and life: the lord-and-ladies, the flower, the fir, the gate, the rider, the bat, the reeler, the stag, the Maramureş round dance, the wolves’ teeth, the snake, the rake, the water wave. The wool is handcrafted, colored with natural dyes, made from St. John’s wort, onion peels, nut rinds, buckthorn, and plum tree bark.”

Along with the traditional rugs in the exhibition, one can see a flying carpet (Airplanes and Angels), which is the work of Mircea Cantor. This piece resulted from his encounter with Maramureş rugs during the artists’ trips to the region in the winter of 2007, during which he eventually ended up at Victoria Berbecaru’s gate. Cantor commissioned Berbecaru to make ”Airplanes and Angeles,” which is woven with the figures of airplanes and angels in subtle grays, ochres and creams, while Cantor himself designed the color scheme and the pattern, based on a mixture of traditional and contemporary motifs. The composition is inspired by traditional rugs from the region and features a central ground with distinct borders of decorative bands symbolizing water flowing, wolves’ teeth, butterflies and the sun and moon. In the center of the carpet is a radiating pattern of geometric motifs meant to symbolize rams’ horns. Within the remaining field, Cantor introduced the more recent flying figures, which he translated into graphic form using Photoshop. The carpet embodies two distinct forms of investment, that of the time and knowledge of the carpet makers, evident in the weave and texture of the finished object, and the degrees of significance we might ascribe to the aerial forms, be they agents of intercession or destruction. The scenario pitches the viewer somewhere between allegory and reality. In describing the process of making the carpet and its possible meaning Cantor notes: “With the carpet my interest was not to copy an existing tradition, but rather to update it with my own vision. For this reason I drew in the airplanes and the angels. You will never see airplanes or angels in Romanian rugs. It was more like the dichotomy between two realities, the visible and the invisible. On top of this, you have the association of the Oriental flying carpet. Ideals of flying and traversing space are deeply rooted in humankind’s aspirations. From birds, butterflies and other creatures we’ve always tried to symbolize and copy in a very concrete way their freedom of movement. Today when flying UFOs are no longer taboo, and angels are far more mythical creatures, airplanes seem more meaningful to us. But is it really like this?” (Excerpt from Susanne Cotter: Mircea Cantor. The Need for Uncertainty, book edited by Modern Art Oxford, Arnolfini, Bristol, and Camden Arts Centre, London)

Schedule of events The exhibition opens at La Maison Française, 4101 Reservoir Rd NW, Washington D.C., on Monday, March 28, at 6:30 pm, and runs through April 15th by appointment only: 202 944 6091. Free admission. The exhibition will be accompanied by traditional weaving workshops for children held by Victoria Berbecaru, and hosted by La Maison Française on March 29th. Before this unique exhibition opens in Washington, D.C., visual artist Mircea Cantor and traditional rug-maker Victoria Berbecaru stop on March 24 in New York for a conversation about the exhibition and their work. The event is presented and hosted by the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York (200 East 38th St., New York, NY 10016) and starts at 7:30 pm. Free admission.

About the artists Victoria Berbecaru is a teacher and weaver from the Romanian village of Botiza, Maramureş. She has rediscovered and mastered traditional carpet-making and natural wool coloring. She has held workshops and has exhibited her work throughout Romania and in Vienna, Strasbourg and Berlin, with solo exhibitions at Parma Castle, Italy, and Peruwelz Cultural Centre, Belgium. 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. This includes, on a larger scale, the positives and negatives of globalization. On a more specific scale, this includes characteristics of Romanian folk traditions such as with his photograph “’Hiatus”’ (2008) which presents scaled-up version of traditional wool spindle or his other monumental work the “’Arch of triumph”’ (2008). Cantor’s choice of media is diverse, in that he has employed video, animation, sculpture, drawing, painting, and installation in his practice. 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. His visual effect is often ambiguous - often left for the viewer to make sense of. Cantor’s work is included in prestigious public collections such as Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Wash-

ington, 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; Museum Abteiberg, Monchengladbach, Germany; Magasin 3, Stockholm, Sweden, 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 The Romanian Cultural Institute in New York aims to promote Romanian culture throughout the US and internationally, and to build sustainable, creative partnerships among American and Romanian cultural organizations. The Institute acts as a catalyst and proponent of initiatives across artistic fields, striving to foster understanding, cultural diplomacy, and scholarly discourse, by enriching public perspectives of contemporary Romanian culture. La Maison Française is the cultural center of the Embassy of France in Washington presenting films, concerts, exhibitions, conferences, and more! In 2010, La Maison Francaise organized over 100 events and welcomed more than 200 French artists. The Francophonie Festival 2011 is co-organized by the French-American Cultural Foundation, and the Smithsonian Associates in partnership with the French-speaking embassies in Washington, D.C., the Alliance Française, and La Maison Française. www.francophoniedc.org La Maison Française Embassy of France 4101 Reservoir Rd., N.W. Washington, D.C. 20007 www.la-maison-francaise.org Romanian Cultural Institute in New York 200 East 38th Street (at 3rd Avenue) New York, NY 10016 www.icrny.org

The Traditional Maramureş rugs of Victoria Berbecaru and Mircea Cantor’s Flying Carpet March 28 – April 15, 2011 La Maison Française in Washington D.C. March 24: Preview and Conversation with the artists Romanian Cultural Institute in New York

Mircea Cantor Three weavers working in sync for Airplanes and angels Botiza, March 2011. © 2011 by Mircea Cantor

Old lady weaver making “The week’s seven days” Botiza, March 2011. © 2011 by Mircea Cantor

“The week’s seven days” by Victoria Berbecaru  Hand woven carpet, wool, natural dyes. © 2011 by Mircea Cantor

Handwoven carpet by Victoria Berbecaru 2008, Hand woven carpet, wool, natural dyes, 150 x 220 cm © 2011 by Mircea Cantor

“Airplanes and Angels” by Mircea Cantor. Exhibition view at Modern Art Oxford, April 2008. Hand woven wool carpet, made by the weavers from Botiza and Victoria Berbecaru, 198 / 300 cm © Photo by Andy Keate. Courtesy the artist and Yvon Lambert Gallery, Paris

Handwoven carpet by Victoria Berbecaru Hand woven carpet, wool, natural dyes © 2011 by Mircea Cantor  

Selected Press 2010

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Taking aim: Highlights from Art Basel | Need to Know | PBS

PBS.org

This website is no longer actively maintained Some material and features may be unavailable

Taking aim: Highlights from Art Basel By Laura van Straaten December 3rd, 2010

Photo: Dvir Gallery

“One Piece, the Same” by Paris­based artist Mircea Cantor (born 1977 in Romania) is a mirrored Plexiglas puzzle, loosely mapped into the shape of Israel, but without (as the Dvir Gallery of Tel Aviv who represents the work puts it) “committing to specific border agreements or territory manifestations.” The sculpture lies flat, a shiny puddle, to evoke the myth of Narcissus, who fell in love with his own reflection in a pool of water — not understanding that it was only an image — and died by wasting away while pining for his own reflection (or by killing himself, as some versions say). When you bend over the tabletop to “play” with puzzle pieces, you can’t help but see your own reflection. Yet instead of an irresistibly beautiful you, an upside­down, distorted, multiplied version of you is immediately implicated in the work and, by extension, in the complexity of the “puzzle” of the Israeli­Palestinian struggle.

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Initiartmagazine

Initiartmagazine Interview : Mircea CANTOR

Mircea Cantor, Tracking Happiness, 2009, 11' Super 16mm transfered to HDCA. © Mircea Cantor. Courtesy of the artist This interview was conducted last summer in Monchengladbach (Germany) where Mircea Cantor presented his solo show in the Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Wise as a Serpent and Innocent as a Dove, a survey of his last 7 years’ works. At the occasions of Mircea Cantor's nomination for the Marcel Duchamp Prize and his upcoming solo exhibition in Le Credac (France), More Cheeks Than Slaps, 16 Sept ­ 18 December 2011, we decided to republish this interview to kick off la rentrée, the energetic re­entering of the world deserted during the long vacation. By Selina Ting One of the most important young artists emerged in the international art scene since the last decade, Mircea Cantor (*1977, Romania) is best known for his use of video and mixed media installations to address the notions of displacement, uncertainty, fragility of convictions and uneasy confrontation of ideologies.  The artist said at an interview that today “as we live in a simultaneous world where various items meet in the same place and time, there is a space of a beautiful tension that can lead toward a new vision”. Adapting a highly economic language, the artist is far more optimistic than cynical with his art.  A flying carpet with symbols of angels and airplanes is enough to bring different religions and values together. Despite being labeled as “provocative” from time to time, Mircea is in fact an idealist.  A co­existed world in

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perfect harmony is perhaps not so unattainable in his eyes.  “Le Monde” should be “Les Mondes” (2008).  At least he has faith in Man.  But he is not innocent; his innocence has purity at heart but wisdom in the mind.

Mircea Cantor, Double Heads Matches, 2002. (Still from video). © Mircea Cantor. Courtesy of the artist Talking about his video Double Heads Matches (2002)which gained him attention, he said he was lucky to have met the Romanian manufacturer who found a crazy solution to produce 20,000 boxes of double­heads matches, legally against the EU law and technically impossible to do such a task.  Mircea stressed the contrast in his cinematographic language, “you can see from the videos, they had to cut the wood into matchsticks, and dipped both tips into phosphorusat and dried them in a special oven.  I recorded the whole process step by step.  The first part of the production was by machine, very systematic and mechanical, noisy.  Then the second part is made by human hand which gives different motion, speed.”  When the aggression of the machine is replaced by the warmth of the human hand, the images then speak of attention, passion and quietness.

Mircea Cantor, The Need for Uncertainty (2008) © Mircea Cantor. Courtesy of the artist. Courtesy Yvon Lambert, Paris, New York. Mircea is a vegetarian and he wants his food to be prepared with care and passion, which were obviously absent in the salad before him.  Critical towards the mass­consumption and fast­food culture, he does not want to comply with the market’s expectation for the ever new and newer works.  Instead, he integrates and juxtaposes his old works with newer pieces in his solo shows.  In his installation piece, The Need for Uncertainty (2008), for example, where two peacocks (born and brought up in cages) were placed inside a http://www.initiartmagazine.com/interview.php?IVarchive=24

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gallery space in a series of golden cages, it becomes a symbol of our daily illusion of freewill as well as an artist’s self­reflexive questioning of his social role to perform, to produce and to please the public.

Mircea Cantor, Deeparture, 2005. (Still from video). © Mircea Cantor. Courtesy of the artist. The use of animals in his work evoked some debates in different occasions.  In an earlier much acclaimed video work, Deeparture (2005), a deer and a wolf were once again founded in an unsettling encounter inside a pristine white gallery space, what interests the artist is not scenes of bloodshed but a perpetual climax of “something­might­happen”, but then it would never happen.  “It’s the power of the humanity, the ability to control.  That’s why we are above other creatures, because we can control and sublimate the tension, turn it into something higher, let’s say love. But then the question is how.”  The encounter of the wild and the civilized reflects back on us as a conscious contained subject. Mircea Cantor, Tracking Happiness, 2009, 11' Super 16mm transfered to HDCA. © Mircea Cantor. Courtesy of the artist. Filmed by Vernissage TV at the opening of Cantor's solo show in Kunsthaus Zürich. The work that actually prompted me to call his gallery for an interview is a more recent signature work – his video Tracking Happiness (2009).  It features a group of seven girls dressed in white walking in a circle while erasing the footprints on the sand of the person in front of her.  The image is very simple, the atmosphere and the gestures speak of pureness.  It’s a highly lyrical work that looks easy, perhaps too easy, for audience who knows Mircea’s work.  But all these are just there to draw you into the mental state so that you can make conscious of what’s going on underneath the simplicity.   For me, in terms of aesthetics, this is the most emblematic work that the artist produced in the last decade.  It’s about happiness which is the very first purpose of our life.  But then where is happiness? Who is showing us the path to happiness?  “Can someone really show you a direction to find happiness?  I believe that happiness is only from you, you have to find it yourself.  Nobody can give you direction.  You can follow the footsteps of the person before you, but that doesn’t guarantee your own happiness.  So when you erase someone’s footstep, it means that you start your life from zero, always, at every moment.”  Agreed, but then why Tracking?  “Tracking means this kind of blind pursuit, searching, thinking that by following something, you will reach it.  So, from this point of view, the video is quite perverse.  It’s about disillusion.”

http://www.initiartmagazine.com/interview.php?IVarchive=24

3/5

17/08/2016

Initiartmagazine

Mircea Cantor, Shadow for a While, 2007. 16mm film (black and white, silent), 2 min. Fund for the Twenty­ First Century. © 2010 Mircea Cantor. Image courtesy of the artist and Yvon Lambert Paris/New York. Mircea Cantor uses all kind of media though video installation is the core.  I am interested in how he decides which form to adopt for which work, after much request, he gave me an example of how he works – Shadow for a While (2007).   “Firstly, it was a shadow drawn on the wall in my studio. It stayed there for quite a moment. Then, I told myself, ‘you should burn it’. How? Burning needs the time element and time element is only provided by film. So, there it’s, the film. Otherwise, it would just be a banner, a shadow. It becomes much stronger and drew deeper in its symbolic meaning.” The shadow, or the blackness, of the flag makes it an anonymous symbol for any country, and thus, universality.  Why it’s burning?  Is it about destruction?  “What interests me isn’t the idea of destruction but the idea of suspension.  It’s a place to speak about new possibilities, in the way that when you finished something, not necessarily something new will take place.  It’s optimistic because you give a chance for something to develop, not just for the sake of destroying something.” The burning process itself can be short, but this short moment of ideological vacuum that we largely overlooked could be an important cool down period for new ideas to develop.  A statement that many would still be overlooked, I believe.

http://www.initiartmagazine.com/interview.php?IVarchive=24

4/5

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Initiartmagazine

Mircea Cantor, Seven Future Gifts (2008). Concrete, iron, 7 pieces of variable dimensions. © Mircea Cantor. Courtesy of the artist About the artist Mircea Cantor was born in Romania in 1977. Lives in Paris, Berlin and Romania His major exhibitions include More Cheeks Than Slaps, Le Credac (France), 2011. Wise as a Serpent and Innocent as a Dove, Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Monchengladbach, Germany, 2010. Mircea Cantor solo show, Kunsthaus Zürich, Zurich (2009), The need for uncertainty, Modern Art Oxford, Arnolfini, Bristol, and Camden Arts Centre, London, all in 2008; Ciel Variable, Fonds Régional d´Art Contemporain Champagne Ardennes – FRAC, France (2007); Airs de Paris, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2006); The title is the last thing, Philadelphia Museum of Art, USA (2006) and 4th Berlin Biennale (2004). Mircea Cantor is represented by Yvon Lambert Paris and Dvir Gallery, Tel Aviv, Magazzino di Arte Moderna, Rome.

http://www.initiartmagazine.com/interview.php?IVarchive=24

5/5

revist` de arte vizuale

2010

MIRCEA CANTOR Shooting Galeria Dvir, Tel Aviv 11 septembrie – 23 octombrie 2010 curator: Mihnea Mircan

n Mircea Cantor’s ‘Tracking Happiness’, dancers pace the sand in a circle, sweeping repeatedly the trace of each other’s steps. In its conflation of first cause and last effect, made identical in spite of the distance separating them, the film recalls Vladimir Nabokov’s observation in ‘Speak, Memory’ that the future might just be “the obsolete in reverse”. The choreographed procession in the film takes place at the phantasmal center of history that Nabokov’s phrase invites us to imagine, where the obsolete becomes itself – time past – to one side, while unfolding as the new to the other, only to be recuperated as obsolescence, as a unsettling rehearsal for a postponed conclusion. Cantor’s film takes the conventional timeline of historiography and makes it round: a loop, where the gesture is equivalent with its passage and simultaneous with its erasure, and where the tragedy equals the farce. A circular poetics, which can be understood as a space for biographies to be endlessly refashioned, or for disjunctive selves to be posited against the idea – still haunting mindsets, institutions and those political discourses predicated on apocalyptic scenarios – that time flows towards a definitive clarification of its purpose, or that the present proceeds inevitably from the past and adheres to the future as its necessary confirmation.

I

text de MIHNEA MIRCAN

|n expozi]ia-proiect, artistul folose[te dou` elemente recurente, arma [i oglinda, situându-[i discursul pe planuri ambivalente, „shot” \nsemnând nu numai „\mpu[cat” ci [i „fotografiat”, iar oglinda având semnifica]ia supravegherii. Prin intermediul acestora, orice dezacord poate fi repede \n`bu[it. Un Panopticon difuz, \n care to]i sunt observa]i oricând [i oriunde, \narmat cu instrumentele document`rii [i represiunii. |n expozi]ie este imaginat felul \n care via]a, munca [i semnifica]ia lor pot fi definite [i reprimate din perspectiva unui adversar. Propor]iile de tragedie [i de ironie ale acestui mix conceptual sunt perfect echivalente, a[a \ncât ceea ce p`rea o observa]ie descurajat` este de fapt un recurs la imagina]ie, o invita]ie la ac]iune poetic`.

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MACHINE GUN IN THE MIRROR STAGE

l dosare de artist // portfolios

This remarkable video could serve as an introduction to ‘Shooting’, Cantor’s exhibition project at Dvir Gallery, Tel Aviv. Here the artist assembles an arsenal of spatial and temporal definitions, of distant realities that function as each other’s distorted reflection, obliquely defining a confrontational position. This hinges on the use of two recurrent props, the gun and the mirror, and on situating the discourse within an ambivalent scene to be ‘shot’ – photographed – and surveyed, so that dissent can be promptly stifled. A diffuse Panopticon is looking everywhere, from everywhere, armed with the instruments of both documentation and repression. It institutes its existence and efficacy via both, it is located at the blind spot and at the vanishing point; it could be said to be looking at itself, to be ensuring its permanent self-reflection. Our whole world seems organized to accommodate and guarantee this purpose: political life, in the variety of its manifestations and levels, should never interfere with this gratifying exchange, and should never block the picture. The gun and the mirror compose in Cantor’s exhibition something of a disjointed, but nonetheless functional, camera, and interlock to take aim at the correspondences between selves, tasks and borders. The artist sets into motion categorical processes by which power defines itself as power, and business as business in another significant piece: political and economic strength seem designed to delight in their conceptual stability and instrumental effortlessness. The neon with ‘Geschäft ist Geschäft’, legible only in mirror installed on the opposite wall, sees itself in bits of broken mirror (which might indicate a previous, shattered identity)

pagina al`turat`: Rainbow, 2010 color etching ink, artist's finger prints 7 m large / 3,5 m high Courtesy Dvir Gallery, Tel Aviv © photo: Mircea Cantor sus: Deeparture, 2005 2' 43", 16mm transfered to BETA digital, color, silent view at Musee Rodin, Paris , May 2010 © Copyright Mircea Cantor Photo: Aurelien Mole courtesy Mircea Cantor and Yvon Lambert Paris dreapta jos: One Piece, the Same, 2010 table, tripod, mirror and Plexiglas, 300x100 cm Courtesy the artist and Dvir Gallery, Tel Aviv

mixed with horse manure, suggesting the random glints of a diamond mine. Somewhere in the disorienting reflections, at the point where a single ‘image’ is recomposed, exchange value is extracted from a repulsive combination of elements. The exhibition imagines how life, work and worth might be defined and confined from the other side, from the perspective of an obfuscated adversary. The amounts of tragedy and irony that go into the conceptual mix are perfectly equivalent, so what had appeared as a dispirited observation is in fact an appeal to imagination: an invitation to take poetic action. Alte expozi]ii de Mircea Cantor \n 2010: Klug wie die Schlangen und einfältig wie die Tauben (Wise as Serpents and Innocent as Doves), Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, July 2010; Heilige blumen (Holy Flowers), Kunsthalle Nuremberg, December 2010 45 l

Selected Press 2009

41-41 :‫ שבת‬,‫ שישי‬,44-44 :'‫ה‬-'‫ ג‬,1111441-11 ‫פקס‬,2111111-11 '‫טל‬,2411116 ‫ תל אביב‬, 11144 .‫ד‬.‫ ת‬,41 ‫ראשית חכמה‬ 14 Reshit Hochma St., PO Box 35411 Tel Aviv 6135302, Tel: 03-6043003 Fax: 03-5444893, [email protected], www.dvirgallery.com

16/08/2016

Mircea Cantor ­ Canadian Art

REVIEWS

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Mircea Cantor "Mircea Cantor" by Wojciech Olejnik, Winter 2009, pp. 114-15 DECEMBER 1, 2009

BY WOJCIECH OLEJNIK

In “Preventative kiss for suspicious war,” the Romanian artist Mircea Cantor uses a strippeddown approach to address con陙Њict, policing and subjugation. Such situations always contain more than one voice or mode of interpretation, and thus contradictory perspectives are incorporated into Cantor’s work. The approach is particularly e�昜ective in the video The leash of the dog that was longer than his life, which is composed of two divergent scenarios that seem to cancel one another out. In one part of the video, two people play volleyball as a chained, barking dog looks on, excited by the action and the bouncing ball. The chain at the dog’s neck demands more and more of the camera’s attention as the dog resists against it. Eventually the camera narrows its focus to follow the thick chain along the ground. The pace is dreamlike, the uneasiness of the other part of the video gradually di�昜used as we wonder where the metal links will lead to. But the chain never ends; like the long arm of the law, it is ever-present. The

https://canadianart.ca/reviews/mircea­cantor­johnen­galerie/

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Mircea Cantor ­ Canadian Art

video ends as it begins, with con陙Њict and restraint, abstracting this dynamic to a binary power relation between the conquering and the conquered. Power might be described as aggression that controls the present; Cantor makes its functioning visible. He is aware that power needs a body, a place from which to operate. The issue is di뎀﨔cult to deal with, and maybe this is why Cantor’s work is characterized by clear perspectives, strong oppositions and decisive actions. This does not mean that he avoids complicated situations. On the contrary, each of his scenarios brings forth multiple interpretations and discursive problems. For example, in Color, silent, a police siren and 陙Њashing lights are placed inside an actual police cruiser. While the manoeuvre might seem banal, it signi蠷ᱧes a complicated array of power structures. The piece could be viewed as an inversion of the act of policing, or as an illustration of the social hierarchy of the policing and the policed. Cantor exposes the fragility of our social existence using simple and calculated means. What results is a 陙Њuidity between comfort and discomfort, between play and dread and even between real and abstract, where abstract dynamics are sometimes capable of in陙Њuencing real applications and arrangements of power. This is an article from the Winter 2009 issue of Canadian Art.

https://canadianart.ca/reviews/mircea­cantor­johnen­galerie/

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Mircea Cantor ­ Reviews ­ Art in America

Mircea Cantor ­ Reviews ­ Art in America Reviews Sep. 18, 2009

Mircea Cantor by Nancy Princenthal Find this article online: www.artinamericamagazine.com/reviews/mircea­cantor/

Like many exhibitions lately, Mircea Cantor’s felt like a rebus, and a test. Called “White Sugar for Black Days,” it was eclectic in medium, message and emotional pitch. Scattered throughout the gallery’s two rooms was the show’s trademark work, 7 Future Gifts (2008)—a series of concrete ribbons tied around nothing. The invisible gifts ranged from a forlorn little thing placed in a far corner to a towering absence more than 12 feet high. Along with the show’s title, these ribbons, all topped with schematic bows, suggested a warning, perhaps to beware of empty promises. Or, to relinquish the hope that refined sweeteners can brighten our dark times, relieve our real and spiritual hunger. Or maybe the cartoonishly simple sculptures are simply wrappers for a set of brainy games. From certain sightlines, they literally framed the show’s other equally cryptic works, one a canoe shape made of a cut­ open tire and filled with corncobs in which kernels have been pecked out in the form of the titular words, What should we do with the pearls (2008). Io (2009) is pair of small black­and­white photographs that seem identical but tonally reversed; both show a small boy standing in a train looking out the window at what appears in one image as the ominous mouth of a dark tunnel, in its mate as the proverbial light at that tunnel’s end. Cantor commissioned a graphic artist to make the drawings for Easy (2008), a storyboard representing two fingers walking toward and leaping (easily) over a little cardboard barrier. The banner of the New York Times is reduced by one word to form the spliced phrase at the center of the collage Untitled (The New Times), 2009.

http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/reviews/mircea­cantor/print/

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16/08/2016

Mircea Cantor ­ Reviews ­ Art in America

Each of these modest works marks a position on a grid of meaning, in which the axes could be labeled authenticity and risk, journalism and fiction, promise and deception. Only the 3­minute animated video Zooooooom (2006, revised 2009) covers considerable territory of its own. It features platoons of identical gray cone­headed figures that first advance robotically toward a massive pyramid, then disperse to follow the structure’s constituent stone blocks as they detach themselves and sail outward in every direction. That the cone­heads are mindlessly following the lead of global capital is suggested by the video’s blindingly fast conclusion: the pyramid returns as the Masonic symbol on a U.S. dollar bill, which is shown being lifted from a wallet taken from the back pocket of an oblivious culture consumer as the camera zooms back—hence the title—to show that he is standing under the pyramidal entrance to the Louvre. The Seine and the Tuileries, France and the planet are compressed in a Google­Earth flash. The young Romanian­born Cantor has, similarly, been circulating globally over the past half­dozen years. Smart and graceful, his work walks a tightrope between masterful concision and coy withholding. Generally, he makes the act’s poise its own reward. And here he reminds us with particular force that the appetite for meaning may be one of our most insatiable cravings.

http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/reviews/mircea­cantor/print/

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Selected Press 2008

41-41 :‫ שבת‬,‫ שישי‬,44-44 :'‫ה‬-'‫ ג‬,1111441-11 ‫פקס‬,2111111-11 '‫טל‬,2411116 ‫ תל אביב‬, 11144 .‫ד‬.‫ ת‬,41 ‫ראשית חכמה‬ 14 Reshit Hochma St., PO Box 35411 Tel Aviv 6135302, Tel: 03-6043003 Fax: 03-5444893, [email protected], www.dvirgallery.com

16/08/2016

Mircea Cantor | Frieze

REVIEW - 01 JAN 2008

Mircea Cantor BY NICOLE SCHEYERER

Mircea Cantor, Seven Future Gifts (2008)

Mircea Cantor’s rst exhibition in Hungary felt like a retrospective. But Cantor has stressed that he is not so interested in constantly presenting new work, rejecting what he calls the ‘what’s-your-next-project mantra’. Instead, he is attracted to the idea of a ‘remake’, by which he means the integration of older works into a new solo show. This reference to the artist’s own past work stood in contrast to the repeated emphasis in this latest exhibition on things to come – evidenced by the title ‘Future Gifts’. The well-balanced exhibition began with Cantor’s most frequently presented video work: Deeparture (2005) shows a wolf and a deer in an empty room that is clearly a white cube. These natural enemies, lmed without sound, roam the room in a heightened state of alertness. The viewer soon begins to wonder if the wolf will attack. But the kind of bloody scenario o ered by natural history documentaries seems unlikely given the video’s calm lming technique. Though often reiterated, comparisons with Joseph Beuys’ coyote action I like America and America likes me (1974) are hardly tting. There is no pseudo-shamanistic interaction between artist and animal here; the ared nostrils, itting eyes and swift movements are spectacle enough. Most touching of all is how out of place the animals look in the sterile space, its emptiness seems more impenetrable than any undergrowth. Being out of place is also the subject of the installation Stranieri (Foreigners, 2007), which consists of 49 baguettes spread over a round, table-like platform. The loaves of bread have knives stuck in them and salt appears to be running out of the cuts. The classical gifts of hospitality, handed to ‘strangers’ on their arrival, take on a painful aftertaste in the equation bread equals esh and salt equals blood. The press release https://frieze.com/article/mircea­cantor­0

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Mircea Cantor | Frieze

mentions a childhood memory of Cantor’s in which his Romanian grandmother, following an archaic custom, sprinkled salt into wounds to stop the bleeding. In Of Hospitality (2000), Jacques Derrida revisits questions of hospitality from antiquity and criticizes the way globalized trade goes hand in hand with repressive immigration policy. In this sense, Cantor’s installation seems to be reminding us of the many ‘stranieri’ currently in need of hospitality. The refugee theme is clearer still in Cantor’s mural, Chaplet (2007), in which a room is en-closed by a depiction of barbed wire. On closer inspection, the wire turns out to consist of ngerprints. One inevitably thinks of biometric identi cation in the context of border controls. But the work’s title opens up a religious dimension and associates the barbed wire with Christ’s crown of thorns. In this way, the work encircling the viewer acquires a density of meaning that verges on pathos. The 16mm lm Shadow For A While (2007), which shows the shadow of a slowly burning ag, could be read as a farewell to political symbols. The black rectangle on a white ground is gradually broken down by invisible ames, creating a mood that is more elegiac than revolutionary. As a shadow, it is impossible to identify the symbols or colours of any particular state on the ag; it could equally be a white ag of peace. The last room contains the only new work in the show. Seven Future Gifts (2008) represent gift-wrapped packages of various sizes, reduced to the outline of a ribbon tied with a bow. They are based on a small installation of ceramics made by Cantor in 2006 for ‘Toys For Children’, a joint show with Ion Grigorescu. Here the sculptures have been reproduced in rudimentary concrete, each with a di erent type of bow, and range in size from minute to over six feet tall. The soft edges of Cantor’s grey concrete ribbons are reminiscent of Robert Morris’ works in felt. In an interview, however, the artist has spoken out against the backwardness of artistic strategies and interpretations that refer to art history. With Seven Future Gifts, Cantor has created a paradoxical gure: a form that is present to the senses of sight and touch, but that claims to represent a promise yet to be ful lled.

Translated by Nicholas Grindell

NICOLE SCHEYERER

Translated by Nicholas Grindell

    T W I T TF A ER CEB EM OA O IKP L INTEREST TO

frieze magazine First published in Issue 120

January-February 2009

https://frieze.com/article/mircea­cantor­0

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16/08/2016

Review: Ansel Adams/Mircea Cantor | Art and design | The Guardian

 

King of the wild frontier Ansel Adams captures the grandeur and the detail of the US wilderness in his self-selected legacy Laura Cumming Sunday 6 April 2008 00.09 BST

Ansel Adams/Mircea Cantor Modern Art Oxford, to 1June Nightfall in the New Mexico desert. A passing photographer notices a weird face in the moon and an even stranger conjunction of darkness and light igniting the horizon behind a lonely graveyard. He leaps from his car and, without even checking the aperture, takes a single image. There is no time for another before the scene passes, no time to find his light meter. It is 1941 and Ansel Adams has caught in a split second one of the great images of history. Moonrise, Hernandez is Adams's most famous photograph, more popular than any of his other classics: the eerie sandstone pinnacles of Arizona, the ancient marvels of Yosemite, redwood forests like fan-vaulted cathedrals. It is now the most lucrative fine art photograph ever taken, sold and resold at auction, blown up into zillions of posters: the moon standing guard over the dead kings of the wild frontier - an American legend printed up as an epic. But go to Modern Art Oxford and you will see that it is a humble image, so small that the bonewhite graves are barely discernible in the sepulchral half-light. It remains extraordinary that Adams, inching his way through the vast American wilderness, could frame so much of it in an 8x10 without any loss of grandeur. But Adams's art is still unsurpassed for wonderment and for its sense of wonder; nothing looks familiar through his eyes. A desert crag, baked in the American heat, turns into a parchment scroll. Grass blades on a pond in morning dew become sparklers flourished against midnight darkness. Every millimetre absorbs the eye, from the distant spill of a waterfall, like sand through a mountain hourglass, to the flutter of aspen close up. You look into his world and are amazed to discover that near is really far, that this minutely detailed agate is in fact the whole of a canyon wall in Colorado. Adams left what he called his Museum Collection: an entire career condensed in 80 images for anyone who wanted to display his work in public for free. This is the first time his self-selected portfolio has been shown in Britain, and it is both a perfect introduction and a summary of his work. What strikes, over and again, is the awesomeness of Adams's America: a semi-heaven here on rocky earth. His photographs represent untouched nature with meticulous fidelity, as it seems, and yet they appear to belong to the world-in-a-grain-of-sand poetry of painting. Take his view of Moon and Half Dome, Yosemite, from 1938, with its rhythmical striations of rock and chasmic shadows. The moon rides high in the dark sky above a crystal mountain and you have the powerful sense of looking down on a bare, lonely planet. And yet there is an equally strong sense of looking up at another one - is it the moon, or Earth above? Are we in some mysterious visionary universe? https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2008/apr/06/photography

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16/08/2016

Review: Ansel Adams/Mircea Cantor | Art and design | The Guardian

Adams, that great romantic, may have been in thrall to ever-changing nature but he also viewed it in relation to the flat rectangle of the picture. A visit to Taos in 1929, where he saw the paintings of John Marin among others, made him mindful of the abstract qualities of his own medium of photography. This is especially apparent in the great Surf series, wave on changing wave of pure shape, and in his images of sand dunes pleated and folded by the action of wind, rising in knife-edge triangles one behind the other, nothing but form: the merciless geometry of Death Valley abstracted. But no matter how his images are conceived, designed, Adams's depth of feeling is always apparent. In Oxford, beautifully juxtaposed, you can see two contrasting photographs that express his emotional experiences of nature. In Aspens, a few pale glimmering trees approach gingerly out of darkness. You look: they appear to look back at you. In Redwoods, the tree columns rise instead like ancient architecture holding up the sky. People and cathedrals: each metaphor is achieved through extreme variations of depth of field or contrast. Adams could get such glittering blacks and platinum-bright whites, and so many half-tones in between, that it sometimes looks as if his monochrome photographs are breaking into colour. You sense reds and golds that can't be there, just as you imagine moods and presences that aren't literally evident in the landscape. Adams was a supreme technician both outdoors and in the darkroom; he could get two dozen greys out of a negative. But if his universe sometimes feels too rich, almost implausibly biblical, then this is consistent with the workings of memory. For like Wordsworth, Adams's epiphanies are recollected in tranquillity, put through the filter of thought in the studio. But, unlike Wordsworth, Adams did not believe that words could ever 'convey the moods of those moments' - only music and photography. Modern Art Oxford has serendipitously arranged it that the Moonlight Sonata steals up intermittently from the gallery below, where the British artist Katie Paterson has a sound installation marrying Beethoven, rather tendentiously, with a recording of splintering icebergs. But the main contemporary show is by the Romanian artist Mircea Cantor Cantor has a gift for bringing metaphor to life - literally in the case of the peacocks in a succession of golden cages, one inside the next: two birds as astonished as you by this live encounter. The cages, from vast to bird-sized, create an optical illusion; from certain angles it seems that we are imprisoned and the birds are free. Nearby, a flying carpet patterned with angels and aeroplanes hovers in mid-air and a Transylvanian tree appears to have blossomed into a sculpture. Halfway up, the trunk mysteriously opens into a starflower. Cantor has a lyrical sensibility and an unusually light touch. These overlapping elements magic carpet, gilded cage, miraculous tree - seem rooted in eastern European fairy tales but separately return you to modern reality. What tradition weaves aeroplanes into carpets, how long will that tree in the photograph survive or those birds endure the larger prison of an art gallery?

Topics Photography Art Ansel Adams Save for later Article saved https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2008/apr/06/photography

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Selected Press 2007

41-41 :‫ שבת‬,‫ שישי‬,44-44 :'‫ה‬-'‫ ג‬,1111441-11 ‫פקס‬,2111111-11 '‫טל‬,2411116 ‫ תל אביב‬, 11144 .‫ד‬.‫ ת‬,41 ‫ראשית חכמה‬ 14 Reshit Hochma St., PO Box 35411 Tel Aviv 6135302, Tel: 03-6043003 Fax: 03-5444893, [email protected], www.dvirgallery.com

Selected Press 2006

41-41 :‫ שבת‬,‫ שישי‬,44-44 :'‫ה‬-'‫ ג‬,1111441-11 ‫פקס‬,2111111-11 '‫טל‬,2411116 ‫ תל אביב‬, 11144 .‫ד‬.‫ ת‬,41 ‫ראשית חכמה‬ 14 Reshit Hochma St., PO Box 35411 Tel Aviv 6135302, Tel: 03-6043003 Fax: 03-5444893, [email protected], www.dvirgallery.com

MIRCEA CANTOR Alessandro Rabottini Flash Art n.251 November – December 06 A FUTURE WORLD

Alessandro Rabottini: What is this little map on one wall of your studio? It’s a drawing, a sort of web with the titles of all your works linked one to another… Mircea Cantor: Sometimes people ask about the relation between one new work and what you did in the past, looking for linear correspondences. That’s why I need this map, it functions as a shortcut. AR: Even if your work appears ‘open’and not literal, in the end it seems you have a very precise idea of how it should be looked at. I’ve never heard you speak about your work in terms of content, but at the same time you seem to provide the viewer with a very clear angle of view. MC: I don’t know... Maybe it has to do with my idea of production. I think that to make a ‘new’solo show is actually to ‘remake’it, in the sense that if I were invited to make a solo show today I would probably make it also with existing works. I feel that it is more important to establish relations among what I did in the past, instead of satisfying the equation new show = new work. I prefer to create a stage of re-presentation for some of my works.

View of Mircea Cantor’s studio and a garlic dressed as an onion. © Mircea Cantor.

AR: This has to do somehow with the current methods of production in the contemporary art world… MC: We all criticize the culture of consumption, but we are all obsessed with the “what’s your next project” mantra. I’m now trying to find the way to be more ecological and economic in the context of my work. It all started when I did the show at Dvir Gallery in Tel Aviv, where I could experience a totally different way of “producing a new work.” And at the end I think that people met my work out of the cliché of the artist socially and politically engaged. It all began with some thoughts about how artists and their work can be destroyed by oblivion. The gallery was not allowed to release any press material, and I’m not going to tell you now about what was

the work in the show, since it is all about the false idea of understanding one thing through its description — which is a form of destruction. I’m not even sure that that work is about viewing, but I’m sure that it exists right here and now since we are talking about it. AR: The absence you’re talking about is very politically loaded… MC: It is a form of personal response to a reality saturated with images. That’s why I decided to stop making photographs, because I don’t want to validate and multiply any further this visual reality. To put a conceptual value in a picture doesn’t prevent participation in the general pollution. I’m trying to experiment with a form of experience which is not bidimensional. AR: Often you hear young artists talking about the ‘void.’My impression is that today the idea of void has more to do with the social and political agenda rather than being about a mystical value. It is interesting to hear you talk about trying to be absent, when you have often worked with communication tools like magazines, posters, serial objects, graphic design… MC: I have in my hand a garlic dressed with an onion skin, and I think this is a good answer to your question. Both garlic and onion have a strong smell, and even with a camouflage like this they will remain very recognizable, they can’t avoid their peculiar nature. AR: Don’t you see a sort of generational tendency among younger artists towards the dimension of emptiness, nothingness and vagueness? MC: I don’t know what to say really. I’m just thinking about a piece I did in March 2003, when the Iraqi war was blowing up. I was in Thailand at that time, watching Saddam on CNN at midnight. Suddenly I realized the futility of all this mass-media spectacle. I mean, after three years we still don’t know what’s going on. So I just took a paper and wrote down “Forget all,” and I shot a video after that.

Untitled (Unpredicteble Future), 2004. Light-box, 60 x 80 cm; Zooooooom, 2006. Animation film still, 3 mins;

AR: In the end a lot of your works deal with the idea of the future, and I’m not just thinking of the piece Unpredicteble Future... MC: Don’t you think that it is important for the world, in general, to think about the future? Especially in the art context… just open a magazine, it’s all referring the present to what has been done before. I’m not negating history and continuation with the past, and I don’t want to kill my fathers, but why should we automatically refer to Conceptual art when we talk about disappearance? We all know this, but every time that you repeat this, you create a redundancy. AR: Is this because you don’t want to double reality?

MC: Call it as you want, I just want to take the new as new and not as a co-operation with the past. The present and the future have both to do with conceiving solutions, and we don’t want to do it. So art becomes like business or a love affair; one must continue using the old tricks that you learned in the past. AR:Let’s speak of your video Deeparture: two animals are trapped in a gallery, and watching them you have the feeling of a permanent state of violence, but nothing bad happens. Danger is always there, and you can just wait for it and witness the absence of aggression. I’m talking about this because in the last decade a lot of art from Eastern Europe spoke of the local political troubles, but today the scene is mature enough to make a step forward. MC: A key moment has come for Eastern-European art as it enters the realm of Western Art. Documenta X was the starting point for all these social and political issues. It was a crossroads for synchronizing East and West art. But art from Eastern Europe has always been the same, it has always been politically involved and engaged — here I think of the experiences of artists in the ’60s and ’70s in the underground or unofficial art. So, why does interest in these artists come up only now? And why is there so much interest today in Eastern-European artists who deal with Conceptualism and practices from the ’60s and the ’70s? It’s ironic in a way... AR: Maybe that’s because art criticism often follows the mass-media agenda, in order to praise the press and the public. MC: Certain people believe that to be synchronized with global trends they must follow certain paths, they must make the same steps or mistakes. AR: I’m aware of the risk of exploiting cultural identities through their stereotypes, but I’d like to know more about your cultural origins. MC: Well, I come from Romania, which means Communism in the past, sixteen years of transition, now the attempt to enter the EU empire, low-cost labor and so on…but what is important in order to avoid the exoticism is to be aware of the situation. When I use certain themes derived from my culture, I don’t want to export pain, but to stress the fact that what happened there and still happens elsewhere, can be described as part of a universal language. AR: To verbalize your work is sometimes very hard, and despite this difficulty still most of your works remain effective on the level of consciousness, empathetically. They infiltrate the viewer’s perception like weather phenomena: you can’t help but recognize them on your skin, even though it’s hard to explain them. MC: It’s beautiful what you say. I think that today, to write something about one’s work is easy. It’s more difficult to refuse or to keep the silence. And it is much more difficult to understand, talk and communicate about one’s work. Nowadays the term communication is one of the most abused. But now we are getting too serious and it’s not good... Alessandro Rabottini is curator at the GAMeC, Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Bergamo, Italy. Mircea Cantor was born in Cluj, Romania, in 1977. He lives and works in Paris and Cluj. Selected solo shows: 2006: Philadelphia Museum of Art; GAMeC, Bergamo. 2005: Dvir Gallery, Tel Aviv; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Yvon Lambert, New York; Centro arte moderna, Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon. 2004: Magazzino d’Arte Moderna, Rome. 2003: FRAC des Pays de la Loire, Carquefou. Selected Group Shows: 2006: Sevilla Biennale; Busan Biennial; “Printemps de septembre,” Toulouse; Periferic 7, Iasi; 4th Berlin Biennial. 2005: “Cosmopolis,” State

Museum for Contemporary Art, Thessalonica; “Universal Experience,” MCA, Chicago. “Irreducible,” CCA Wattis, San Francisco. 2004: “Stock Zero,” National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest; “New Video, New Europe” Renaissance Society, Chicago/ Tate Modern London.

Born to be burnt, 2006. Incense and cardboard. Courtesy GAMeC, Bergamo, Yvon Lambert, Paris/New York, and Magazzino d’Arte Moderna, Rome. Photo: Antonio Maniscalco.

Selected Press 2005

41-41 :‫ שבת‬,‫ שישי‬,44-44 :'‫ה‬-'‫ ג‬,1111441-11 ‫פקס‬,2111111-11 '‫טל‬,2411116 ‫ תל אביב‬, 11144 .‫ד‬.‫ ת‬,41 ‫ראשית חכמה‬ 14 Reshit Hochma St., PO Box 35411 Tel Aviv 6135302, Tel: 03-6043003 Fax: 03-5444893, [email protected], www.dvirgallery.com

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Issue 95 November-December 2005

Mircea Cantor

About this article

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First published in Issue 95, Nov emberDecember 2005

Artist meets con artist; travel and tourism; matches lit at both ends

by Christy Lange

Although only 28, Mircea Cantor has already propagated his own creation my th. Born in Romania, he left home in 1 999, hitch-hiking his way through Europe and ev entually settling in France. In his work All the Directions (2000) he documents himself holding a blank sign by the side of the road – a message to driv ers that he would accept a lift any where. Y et for someone so itinerant, Cantor’s practice stay s surprisingly tied to his Romanian roots. He is the cofounder and co-editor of a cultural rev iew called V ersion, based in Cluj and Paris, and although many of his v ideo works focus on trav el and tourism, the best of them ex amine the processes of production and ex change in his own country . These deadpan documents reflect his ambiv alent position as refugee, trav eller and Romanian nativ e – as both observ er and participant in an economy that accommodates and relies on unconv entional forms of labour. Are the ex changes entered into by the scrounger, the protester, the cheat or the artist a means of surv iv al, legitimate business practices or just dead labour?

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The protagonist in Smen (2002) is a Romanian y outh who ex plains how he cheats tourists out of their Euros by surreptitiously replacing them with Romanian Lei. The camera focuses on his hands deftly handling his V elcro wallet as he rehearses the trick, narrating each step as if it were a standard business transaction. Although the thief describes the deal as one with a clear winner and loser, Cantor remains equiv ocal. As a y oung Romanian artist making a film about a y oung Romanian con artist, Cantor undermines our ex pectations of solidarity between the two; he could be ex posing the thief to potential tourists, but he may also be justify ing the scheme to the sy mpathetic v iewer, who can see that this v ocation is somehow inev itable; the ex change, though illegal, seems almost fair. Whether the artist identifies more with the struggling local cheat or the unlucky tourist remains uncertain. Like the magician letting y ou in on the tricks of his trade in Smen, Cantor spotlights his surroundings and then demy stifies them. For Anx ious Utility V ehicles (2001 ) he cov ered parked cars on the streets with home-made cov ers, then posted pictures of them on hoardings across Paris. The images may look like some guerrilla adv ertising campaign for a new v ehicle, y et the cars look utterly uniform under their grey cov ers. In a similar kind of interv ention, he orchestrated a street demonstration in Albania in which

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7/3/2014

Frieze Magazine | Archive | Mircea Cantor

protesters held mirrors rather than conv entional placards, reflecting the city ’s buildings (The Landscape is Changing, 2004). Cantor draws attention to aspects of the landscape that might otherwise disappear, but once our curiosity has been aroused, reality sets in again – there is actually nothing magical to be unv eiled. Like the scheme in Smen, this sleight of hand is just a set of straightforward operations reflecting reality rather than a more enticing illusion. Double Heads Matches (2002–3) appears to document a rarely seen match production process in a Romanian factory . The footage is captiv ating, ev en beautiful: the cav ernous, light-flooded factory is full of massiv e pieces of machinery , each with its own specific purpose: shredding logs into matchstick-size bits, for ex ample, or sorting the millions of sticks into v ertical rows. Occasionally one of the workers unbuttons his shirt or flex es his muscles as he rakes up the rejected matches littering the floor. This is the only time we are aware there is a filmmaker present. At the end of the process the footage unex pectedly shifts to a setting more like an artist’s studio, in which women with manicured fingernails gently dip the matches into a red phosphorus mix ture. This last step is surprisingly home-made and deliberate, but there is another twist – the women dip both ends of the matches into the phosphorus. Our attention focuses on this final functionless product, which begins to look like an art work, imply ing something both dangerous and absurd. My first thoughts flickered between imagining someone striking the match at one end until burning his fingers on the other, and the thrifty consumer who might try to get full v alue for his money by using each match twice. In employ ing the match factory to produce his edition of double-headed matches, Cantor not only conv inced the workers to ex change their machine labour for craft labour; he also manufactured a product that has no ex change v alue, other than as a work of art. Like someone throwing an unwieldy spanner into the works, Cantor momentarily short-circuits the sy stem he and his subjects are bound to uphold. Like any good magician, he gracefully inv erts the narrativ e he has so patiently unfolded and emerges from behind the curtain, hands free. Christy Lange

frieze is now accepting letters to the editors for possible publication at editors@ frieze.com .

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