Mircea Cantor was born in 1977 in Oradea, Romania. Lives and works in Paris and Cluj-Napoca.
We know who we are, so why not go deeper? Let’s stand for something beyond our nationality. [...] [My] objects speak about the great openness that we can live in today, beyond national categories.
Mircea Cantor’s work takes form in diverse media such as video, sculpture, installation, dynamite, and fire. His artistic practice is rooted in reflections on the competing ideologies and shifts of our time, unafraid to portray a worldview that is both optimistic and strongly critical.
The Landscape is Changing (2003) documents a performance where people march in silence on the streets of the Albanian capital, Tirana. They hold reflective placards, empty of slogans. As Albania was under an authoritarian communist regime until 1991, the work depicts an act of rebellion in a complex political landscape where marches were still closely associated with communist propaganda. Reflected in the placards, we see a society at a threshold, a city undergoing transformation, and its population in a political limbo. Cantor leaves it to the passers-by, as well as us as observers, to fill the work with meaning. The result is a poetic and powerful portrayal of a silent but highly expressive protest.
