Galleries 178 and 179, first floor
Main Building
The Title Is the Last Thing features a series of eight videos by Mircea Cantor as well as a selection of photographs and objects that offer poignant commentary on the relationship between time and labor, politics, tourism, and history. The videos have been organized in four programs that will run weekly at the Film and Video gallery through the duration of the presentation.
Exhibition Minutes
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The inaugural video, Deeparture (2005), records a suspenseful dance between a wolf and a deer trapped in an inescapably small gallery space—a piece that calls to mind Joseph Beuys's 1974 performance, "I Like America and America Likes Me," in which the artist locked himself up with a coyote at the René Block Gallery in New York for a week. Cantor's short piece is a disturbingly silent examination of ideas about nature and dominance played in a time-distorting loop.
Deeparture, 2005 16 mm film transferred to DVD; 2 minutes, 43 seconds
Other works in the show have a more overt political resonance. The Landscape Is Changing (2003) shows demonstrators marching in silence through the busy streets of Tirana, the capital of Albania, brandishing blank mirrors in the place of slogans—a poetically absurd yet poignant happening in Albania, where such spectacles continue to be associated with communist propaganda marches.
In Dead Time (2003), a group of taxi drivers in Thailand kick a ball to one another during the interstitial period between trips, while waiting to ferry tourists from one part of town to the other. Their efforts to keep the ball off the ground echo their ceaseless travel in support of a global tourist industry in which they will never partake.
Many of Cantor's works involve manipulating already existing systems and conventions. In the video, Double Heads Matches (2003), he ironically utilizes a straightforward documentary approach to record Romanian workers' production of his absurd invention, a double-headed match. Because the double-phosphorus dipping has to be done by hand rather than through an efficient, mechanized system, this method resists the downsizing that has accompanied Eastern Europe's transition toward capitalism while at the same time literally moving artistic production from the studio to the factory (two boxes of these matches will be on view).
Double Heads Matches, 2002 Two of twenty thousand matchboxes produced manually at Gherla match factory, Romania
The photographic triptych, Short Cuts, registers the chance paths created by walkers based on their own volition rather than designated paths. Other works are playful comments on the legacy of Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968), including the photograph of a pile of abandoned urinals, titled, I shot this image because it is highly suggestive within a specific circle (2006), which recalls Duchamp's famous Fountain (1917), on view in Gallery 182. Diamond Corn (2005), representing a basic food staple in diamond-like cast crystal, echoes the spare sculptures of the great Romanian-born sculptor Constantin Brancusi (1876–1957), and 1 6M STIL7 ALIV3, which the artist has spray-painted directly onto the gallery wall, refers to the Manga character AnnLee, who, in Cantor's hands, declares her independence and survival.
Taking full advantage of the visual, audio, and temporal dimensions of video while at the same time probing the creative possibilities of many other mediums, Cantor analyzes a compelling range of artistic, cultural, and political topics through his multifaceted artistic practice.
Reproductions Courtesy Mircea Cantor and Yvon Lambert Gallery
Mircea Cantor
About Mircea Cantor
Born in Romania in 1977 and currently based in Paris, Mircea Cantor is widely considered to be among the most promising and challenging young artists working today. Cantor seems to live a life of constant displacement and his travels figure prominently in his artistic practice. Soon after the Romanian borders opened in the early 1990s he left home and began hitchhiking across Europe, in an itinerant life that duplicates the curiosity with which he explores artistic genres and pokes at conventions. The artist counts Joseph Beuys and Marcel Duchamp among his chief influences. Like these artists and many of his contemporaries, Cantor works in a wide variety of media: from video and photography to prints and readymades. His work has been exhibited at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Galleria d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (GAMeC) in Bergamo, and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, among other institutions. This is the first comprehensive exhibition of Cantor's video work in the United States.
Video Schedule
The Title Is the Last Thing Video Schedule
- Deeparture, 2005
16 mm film transferred to DVD, 2 minutes, 43 seconds
Collection Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. T. B. Walker Acquisition Fund, 2006. Courtesy Mircea Cantor and Yvon Lambert Gallery.
November 11–19, 2006
December 12–17, 2006
January 9–14, 2007
February 6–11, 2007 - Double Heads Matches, 2003
Mini DV transferred to DVD, 17 minutes, 17 seconds
Courtesy Mircea Cantor and Yvon Lambert Gallery.
November 21–26, 2006
December 19–24, 2006
January 16–21, 2007
February 13–18, 2007 - Dead Time, 2003
Mini DV transferred to DVD, 2 minutes, 23 seconds
Private Collection, New York. Courtesy Mircea Cantor and Yvon Lambert Gallery.
November 21–26, 2006
December 19–24, 2006
January 16–21, 2007
February 13–18, 2007 - Smen, 2002
Mini DV transferred to DVD, 6 minutes, 10 seconds
Courtesy Mircea Cantor and Yvon Lambert Gallery.
November 21–26, 2006
December 19–24, 2006
January 16–21, 2007
February 13–18, 2007 - The Landscape Is Changing, 2003
Mini DV transferred to DVD, 22 minutes
Collection Bob Rennie and Carey Fouks, Vancouver. Courtesy Mircea Cantor and Yvon Lambert Gallery.
November 28–December 3, 2006
December 26–31, 2006
January 23–28, 2007
February 20–27, 2007 - (…), 2003
Mini DV transferred to DVD, 7 minutes, 7 seconds
Courtesy Bootleg and Yvon Lambert Gallery.
November 28–December 3, 2006
December 26–31, 2006
January 23–28, 2007
February 20–27, 2007 - Tribute, 2004
Mini DV transferred to DVD, 2 minutes, 45 seconds
Courtesy Mircea Cantor and Yvon Lambert Gallery.
November 28–December 3, 2006
December 26–31, 2006
January 23–28, 2007
February 20–27, 2007 - Zooooooom, 2006
Animation film and Mini DV transferred to DVD, 2 minutes, 50 seconds
Courtesy Mircea Cantor and Yvon Lambert Gallery.
December 5–10, 2006
January 2–7, 2007
January 30–February 4, 2007