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Ellen Cantor

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Ellen Cantor (1961–2013) was an American artist.[1] Cantor was known for combining pornography, politics, pop culture and the handmade in her paintings, drawings, sculptures, videos, and films.[2] Born in Detroit, Michigan to a Jewish family, Cantor completed her studies at Brandeis University in 1983 with a degree in painting. She went on to study at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 1991.[3][4]

Life and career

In an interview in 2008, Cantor described her work as “humorous, but also quite disturbing.”[5] Having grown up in the first generation after the Holocaust, Cantor describes a “strong sense of mourning” in the greater Detroit Jewish community:

From an early age in religious school and amongst family I heard survivors' horrific eyewitness accounts — memory was considered a duty to history and future survival. Also, our Rabbi, Morris Adler, was murdered in front of the congregation. And there was social unrest in Detroit, racism — the race riots. Anti-semitism was, for all practical purposes, institutionalized in Detroit, given Henry Ford’s relationship to Hitler, his anti-Semitic treatises and hiring practices, and Father Caughlin's public sermons. Most of my work is informed by the concerns brought up by these historical circumstances. But I also have the counter-memory of a utopian outlook, the architecture and river, the lakes and natural beauty I grew up with.[5]

Solo exhibitions and screenings

  • Be My Baby, Delfina, London, 1999; XL Xavier LaBoulbenne, New York, 1998 and 1996; Feigen, Chicago, 1997; Cabinet, London, 1996; and Postmasters, New York, 1995.
  • Video Drawing 1996-2001, Transmission Gallery, Glasgow, 2000; Kunstbunker, Nuremberg, 2001.
  • Ellen Cantor Cerith Wyn Evans, Kunsthalle Wien, 2002; Sketch, London, 2005; Prince Charles Cinema, London, 2005.
  • Path of Sun – Road of Life, 1000000 mph, London, 2006
  • Within a Budding Grove, Participant Inc, New York, 2008; White Cubicle, London, 2008; Abbt Projects, Zurich, 2007
  • Subversive Cinema: Ellen Cantor, curated by Lux, Zoo art fair, London, 2009
  • Serpentine Cinema: Film in Progress, Serpentine Gallery, curated by Nicola Lees/Victoria Brooks, London, 2009
  • Séance de projection de films, La GAD, Gallerie Arnaud Deschin, Marseille, 2011
  • The Dictator & the Maid, The Black Mariah, Cork, Ireland, curated by Dallas Seitz & The Black Mariah, 2014
  • Ellen Cantor at Künstlerhaus Stuttgart [de] and Cinderella Syndrome at Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco curated by Jamie Stevens and Fatima Hellberg, 2015–16[1][6]

Death and legacy

Cantor died on April 22, 2013, in her apartment in New York City after a year-long battle with lung cancer.[7]

References

  1. ^ a b "Ellen Cantor: Are You Ready For Love? - 80 Washington Square East Galleries - NYU Steinhardt". steinhardt.nyu.edu. Retrieved 2016-11-01.
  2. ^ "Pleasure, Pain, and Politics: Ellen Cantor in New York - News - Art in America". www.artinamericamagazine.com. 18 October 2016. Retrieved 2016-11-01.
  3. ^ "Ellen Cantor". www.newmedia-art.org. Archived from the original on 2016-11-03. Retrieved 2016-11-01.
  4. ^ Everitt Howe, David (October 1, 2016). "PORNOGRAPHY OF POWER". Art in America.
  5. ^ a b "Interview with Ellen Cantor". Hartmut Austen artist website. Originally published in the "considering Detroit” exhibition catalog, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, May 10 – July 27, 2008. Archived (PDF) from the original on July 20, 2024.
  6. ^ "CV Ellen Cantor.doc" (PDF).
  7. ^ "Ellen Cantor (1961–2013)". artforum.com. Retrieved 2016-11-01.
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