Co-presented by Museum of the Moving Image and the Romanian Cultural Institute 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).

This exhibition includes installations of three video works: Tracking Happiness (pictured), Vertical Attempt, and I decided not to save the world; and a photographic diptych. 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."

Featured Works:

Recycling (Mircea Cantor, 1999); Ping Pang Pong (2002); The right man at the right place (I) (2002); The right man at the right place (II) (2002); (...) (Mircea Cantor, 2003); Dead Time (Mircea Cantor, 2003); Double Heads Matches (Mircea Cantor, 2003); The Landscape Is Changing (Mircea Cantor, 2003); Tribute (Mircea Cantor, 2004); The snow and the man (Mircea Cantor and Gabriela Vanga, 2005); The leash of the dog that was longer than his life (Mircea Cantor, 2009); Zooooooom (Mircea Cantor, 2009)

Program information:

Restless: Films and Other Works by Mircea Cantor

Related Articles:
The Converse of Allegory by Mihnea Mircan posted Mar. 21, 2012