Art Encounters 2017 Exhibitions:
That Obscure Object of Desire

Alexandru Antik (b. 1950) is an artist known for his experimental activity in the areas of actionism and video-installation. Antik’s works cross varied medium of expression (object, installation, action, video, photography). Between 1998 and 1999, Antik developed the show “Utopia în artă” [“Utopia in art”], hosted by the TVR Cluj television channel. He was an editor for the contemporary art magazine Balkon (1999-2002) and a visual editor for the political culture magazine Provincia (2001-2002).

Selected exhibitions: Error 404. Teritorii ale absenței [Territories of absence], The National Museum of Contemporary Art Bucharest (2017); Visions in the Dark, Cluj-Napoca Museum of Art (2016, solo); Viziune – Memorie – Reconstituire [Vision – Memory – Reenactment], MAGMA Contemporary Art Space, Sfântu Gheorghe (2013, solo); Forme embrionare și transcrierile acestora [Embryonic forms and their transcriptions], Miskolc Gallery (2013, solo); Orașul văzut de generația ‘80 [The city, as seen by the ‘80s generation], Victoria Art Center Gallery, Bucharest (2013); Caves International Symposium and Exhibition, Anatomy & Theatre Museum, King’s College, London (2011); Badly Happy: Pain, Pleasure and Panic in Recent Romanian Art, Performance Art Institute (PAI), San Francisco (2010); When History Comes Knocking: Romanian Art from the 80s and 90s in Close Up, Plan B Gallery, Berlin (2010); Viziuni între o arhivă activă și un depozit al memoriei [Visions between an active archive and a memory silo], Közelítés Gallery, Pécs (2005, solo); Ex Oriente Lux, Dalles Hall, București (1993); Cine ești? Ce ești? [Who are you? What are you?], happening, UAP Gallery Cluj-Napoca (1980, solo).

In the 1970s, Alexandru Antik’s artistic activity had already taken the approach to art’s conceptual bill, and the demythologization of the status of the artistic object and the role of the author as its primary focus. The works presented at Art Encounters, Mașinăria dorințelor [Machinery of Desires] and Voyeur Art Show paraphrase two of Marcel Duchamp’s most important works: La Mariée mise à nu par ses célibataires, même [Le Grand Verre] and Étant Donnés. The choice of the two Duchamp works allows Antik to approach that period of the artist’s activity characterized by the refusal to adhere to the conventions of the artistic field. Drawing on the curiosity of the visitors, with Voyeur Art Show, Antik problematizes the consumer’s voyeuristic pleasure, making the appearance indistinguishable from the idea. By then calling to the symbolic meanings of The Large Glass, the artist transforms, in Mașinăria dorințelor, the erotic impulse and the failure of catharsis into a dynamo of pixels.

Images :

1. Alexandru Antik, Portrait, photo credits: Alexandru Antik

2. Alexandru Antik, Voyeur Art Show (2016), a paraphrase of work Etant donnés… by Duchamp, multimedia installation project