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| Cantor Mircea Born in 1977 in Oradea, Romania. Lives and works in Paris and Cluj Napoca, Romania. In Stranieri, Mircea Cantor creates an installation made of loaves of bread spread over a round wooden table. Each loaf of bread has a knife stuck in it, in which salt appears to gush from the breadcrumb. The artist premises a series of symbolic references, while at the same time he looks back to experiential situations and memories, both related to his own youth and to ancient customs and traditions. Tradition appears to be deeply rooted in the conscience and in everyday life of the artist’s home country which also holds a prominent position within the framework of his own visual language. Bread and salt both stand as the traditional hospitality gift that used to be offered to foreigners upon arrival, leaving a bitter taste in their mouth though. A symbolic dimension is defined by the following equation that the artist attempts: the bread is identified with the human body and salt with blood. Mircea Cantor also refers to his grandmother’s habit of using salt as a remedy for wounds. Parallel to this, he places the notion of hospitality within the age of globalization, an age where refugees and immigrants constitute the brass tacks. The Stranieri installation also asserts a political dimension reminding us that “hospitality’’ is a necessity for all “foreigners”. Angels and Airplanes is a woven carpet that originates from the tradition of the artist’s birthplace, Romania. However, the motifs that adorn the carpet are not the ones a spectator expects to see. Instead, the traditional motifs have been replaced by ones in which schematic fighter planes and angels met each other unexpectedly. Mircea Cantor introduces an acute comment by putting together two dissimilar worlds, concepts and ideologies and yet maintaining humor and the element of tale and fantasy. Bisi Silva  Download CV |  Airplanes and Angels, 2008 Stranieri, 2008 |
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