Ellen Cantor
{{Short description|American artist (1961–2013)}}
Ellen Cantor (1961–2013) was an American artist.{{Cite web|url=http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/80wse/gallery/2016/09/ellencantor|title=Ellen Cantor: Are You Ready For Love? - 80 Washington Square East Galleries - NYU Steinhardt|website=steinhardt.nyu.edu|access-date=2016-11-01}} Cantor was known for combining pornography, politics, pop culture and the handmade in her paintings, drawings, sculptures, videos, and films.{{Cite web|url=http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/news-features/news/pleasure-pain-and-politics-ellen-cantor-in-new-york/|title=Pleasure, Pain, and Politics: Ellen Cantor in New York - News - Art in America|website=www.artinamericamagazine.com|date=18 October 2016 |access-date=2016-11-01}} She was known for her experimental film work, notably Pinochet Porn, a experimental film in the form of a soap opera, following children growing up during Augusto Pinochet’s regime in Chile.{{cite web |last1=Barron |first1=James |title=On Ellen Cantor: JAMES BARRON with Barry Schwabsky |url=https://brooklynrail.org/2017/10/art/A-Conversation-about-Ellen-Cantor-Barry-Schwabsky-with-James-Barron/ |website=www.brooklynrail.com |publisher=The Brooklyn Rail |access-date=8 March 2025}}{{cite web |title=Pinochet Porn |url=https://www.eai.org/titles/pinochet-porn |website=www.eai.org |publisher=Electronic Arts Intermix |access-date=8 March 2025}}{{cite web |last1=García-Saavedra |first1=Soledad |title=Ellen Cantor on her Pinochet Porn project |url=https://lux.org.uk/ellen-cantor-pinochet-porn-project/ |website=lux.org.uk |publisher=LUX |access-date=8 March 2025}}
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.{{Cite web|url=http://www.newmedia-art.org/cgi-bin/show-art.asp?LG=GBR&ID=430000000000182&na=CANTOR&pna=ELLEN&DOC=bio|title=Ellen Cantor|website=www.newmedia-art.org|access-date=2016-11-01|archive-date=2016-11-03|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161103215824/http://www.newmedia-art.org/cgi-bin/show-art.asp?LG=GBR&ID=430000000000182&na=CANTOR&pna=ELLEN&DOC=bio|url-status=dead}}{{Cite web|url=http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/news-features/magazine/film-pornography-of-power/|title=PORNOGRAPHY OF POWER|last=Everitt Howe|first=David|date=October 1, 2016|website=Art in America|publisher=|access-date=}}
Life and career
In an interview in 2008, Cantor described her work as “humorous, but also quite disturbing.”{{Cite web |date= |title=Interview with Ellen Cantor |url=https://www.hartmutausten.com/reviews-and-interviews.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240720001040/http://www.hartmutausten.com/uploads/3/8/8/4/3884843/interview_ellen_cantor08.pdf |archive-date=July 20, 2024 |archive-format= |website=Hartmut Austen artist website |series=Originally published in the "considering Detroit” exhibition catalog, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, May 10 – July 27, 2008}} 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 [https://allthatsinteresting.com/henry-ford-nazi 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.
In the last five years of her life, Cantor worked on Pinochet Porn. The film was shot from Circus Lives from Hell, a hand drawn script by Cantor. Cantor cited Mel Brooks, Shalom Asch, and Hernandez Brother’s Love and Rockets comic book as influences.{{cite web |last1=García-Saavedra |first1=Soledad |title=Ellen Cantor on her Pinochet Porn project |date=8 January 2010 |url=https://lux.org.uk/ellen-cantor-pinochet-porn-project/ |website=lux.org.uk |publisher=LUX |access-date=8 March 2025}}
In the film, Cantor brings together themes of sexuality, identity, and control:
"I don’t approach sex as a subversion or taboo. I consider sexuality normal, particularly when depicting love relationships. The title Pinochet Porn salutes the film characters’ intimate relationships, but refers more to the dictatorship itself – to the regime’s systematic, sadistic, destruction of individual lives – policies furtively upheld by the United States, United Kingdom and the Papacy. In light of this collusion and abuse of power, the film questions, “Is tragedy a choice”?"
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 {{ill|Künstlerhaus Stuttgart|de}} and Cinderella Syndrome at Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco curated by Jamie Stevens and Fatima Hellberg, 2015–16{{Cite web|url=http://www.loushy.com/backoffice/bioFiles/bio_62.pdf|title=CV Ellen Cantor.doc|last=|first=|date=|website=|publisher=|access-date=}}
- Ellen Cantor: My Perversion is the Belief in True Love, Galerie Isabella Bortozzi, Germany, 2018{{cite web |title=Ellen Cantor Solo Exhibition |url=https://bortolozzi.com/exhibitions/ellen-cantor-solo-exhibition/ |website=bortolozzi.com |publisher=Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi |access-date=8 March 2025}}
Death and legacy
Cantor died on April 22, 2013, in her apartment in New York City after a year-long battle with lung cancer.{{Cite news |title=Ellen Cantor (1961–2013) |url=https://www.artforum.com/news/ellen-cantor-1961-2013-216458/ |access-date=2016-11-01 |newspaper=artforum.com}}
References
External links
- [https://www.ellencantor.org/ ellencantor.org]
- [http://www.wattis.org/MEDIA/00717.pdf Cinderella Syndrome]
- [http://www.hartmutausten.com/uploads/3/8/8/4/3884843/interview_ellen_cantor08.pdf Detroit Interview, June 9, 2008]
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Category:American feminist artists
Category:Jewish American artists
Category:20th-century American women artists
Category:21st-century American women artists