n. 1977, Oradea
Mircea Cantor
Marcel Duchamp Prize in 2011, work at MoMA and the Centre Pompidou — trained in Cluj, and working, as he puts it, “on earth”, between Paris and Cluj.
Mircea Cantor was born in Oradea in 1977 and studied at the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca from 1997 to 1999. His biographies say, on purpose, that he “lives and works on earth” — more precisely, between Paris and Cluj-Napoca.
Recognition came early, and from France: the Ricard Prize in 2004 and the Marcel Duchamp Prize in 2011. Solo exhibitions followed at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (2006), the Kunsthaus Zürich (2009), the Museum of the Moving Image in New York (2012) and the Musée d’Arts de Nantes (2019). His work is in the collections of MoMA, the Centre Pompidou, the Reina Sofía and the Walker Art Center.
It is a different kind of link to Cluj from Ghenie’s or Mureșan’s: not a gallery in the city, but the years he trained here and a city he names, alongside Paris, as the place he works.
Connections
Studied at the University of Art and Design, Cluj, 1997–1999
source · 2026-10-19