MIRCEA CANTOR: THE NEED FOR UNCERTAINTY
2 APRIL - 1 JUNE 2008
Press View: Tuesday 1 April, 11am – 1pm
Modern Art Oxford launches an ambitious new series of artists’ commissions produced in collaboration with Arnolfini, Bristol and Camden Arts Centre, London.
The first commission by Mircea Cantor presents a new sculptural installation in Modern Art Oxford’s Upper Gallery elaborating on the theme of uncertainty. A carved wooden form wrapped around the trunk of a tree in a Transylvanian forest and a flying carpet woven with motifs of angels and aeroplanes are some of the elements used by Cantor to prompt reflections on worlds within worlds, and on freedom and its limitations.
Modern Art Oxford’s Senior Curator and curator of the commission said: “Cantor’s poetic use of materials, images, animals and places offers an eloquent meditation on the contradictions of our contemporary world and the human condition. His work has a beauty and an immediacy that resonates long after the encounter.”
Cantor’s video and mixed media installations address the notion of displacement and co-existent worlds. Since he first began exhibiting in 1999 his work has achieved a growing international reputation. His video, Deeparture (2005), a highlight of the 2006 Berlin Biennial, records the unsettling meeting of a deer and a wolf in a pristine white gallery space. Beyond the suspenseful and highly contrived encounter, Cantor discreetly evokes the uneasy confrontation of ideology, people and culture.
In his sculptural and installation work, Cantor reveals the power of the simple gesture to prompt reflection on the fragility of our convictions. Adding the letter ‘s’ in red to the black and white headline of the French newspaper Le Monde Cantor fractures the cultural authority of its title into multiple worlds, ‘Les Mondes’. Using the imprint of his ink-soaked fingerprints pressed directly onto a wall (Chaplet, 2007), Cantor creates a poignant rosary of barbed wire, both imaginary yet all too real in its enclosure.
Born in 1977 in Oradea, Romania, Mircea Cantor lives and works in Paris and Cluj, Romania.
Mircea Cantor: The Need for Uncertainty will be presented at Arnolfini, Bristol, 13 September to 16 November 2008 and Camden Arts Centre, London, 13 February to 12 April 2009.
A fully illustrated catalogue featuring views of Cantor’s new work and an essay by Modern Art Oxford’s Senior Curator, Suzanne Cotter, accompanies the exhibition.
Supported by the Romanian Cultural Institute in London. 3: 3 artists / 3 spaces / 3 years is funded by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.
Also showing 2 April to 1 June 2008: Ansel Adams: Photographs and Encounters: Katie Paterson.
Modern Art Oxford, 30 Pembroke Street, Oxford OX1 1BP. Open Tuesday to Saturday 10am to 5pm, Sunday 12pm to 5pm, Closed Mondays. Admission Free. For further details please visit www.modernartoxford.org.uk or call 01865 722733.
ENDS
For further information please contact Sara Dewsbery, Press and Marketing Officer on 01865 813813, Email sara.dewsbery@modernartoxford.org.uk
Note to Editors
Exhibitions
Recent presentations of Mircea Cantor’s work include a solo exhibition at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. (2007) and the Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporaneo, Panoramica, Mexico, D.F. (2007), Ciel Variable, Frac Champagne-Ardennes, Reims, France (2007), The Title Is the Last Thing, Philadelphia Museum of Art (2006) and Burn to be Burnt, GAMEC - galeria di arte moderna e contemporamea, Bergamo, Italy (2006).
Group exhibitions include the 4th Berlin Biennial for contemporary art, Berlin (2006), Power Play, Artpace, San Antonio, Texas (2007), Brave New Worlds, The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota and Airs de Paris, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2007).
Prizes
In 2004 Cantor was awarded the Prix Paul Ricard S.A. Established in 1999, the Prix Ricard S.A. is awarded each year to an outstanding representative of the new artistic generation in France. The Fondation d'entreprise Ricard buys a work by the winning artist and presents it to MNAM, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.
Cantor has been nominated for the 2008 Artes Mundi Prize. The prize is awarded to artists who are emerging internationally and whose work adds to our understanding of humanity.
Cantor is co-founder and co-editor of the cultural review Version (www.versionmagazine.com) founded in 2001 at Cluj-Napoca, Romania.