Mircea Cantor, When the Ancient Speaks to the Present

Entering Palazzo Altemps this time means travelling through two thousand years of history in just a few steps. With Constellations of the Ancient, Mircea Cantor brings contemporary art among the museum’s Roman sculptures, creating unexpected encounters between archaeology, memory and everyday life. Winner of the Marcel Duchamp Prize in 2011, with works in the collections of MoMA and the Centre Pompidou, Cantor has lived in France for over twenty years. His practice emerges from the dialogue between his Romanian roots and an international outlook: materials, gestures and traditions from the past become tools for reflecting on freedom, identity and the human condition. Fifteen works are scattered throughout the rooms like clues waiting to be discovered. The Seven Guardians, pine columns carved by Romanian craftsmen and topped with traditional fur hats, evoke the aristocracy of ancient Dacia. Murus Dacicus recreates an ancient fortification using ordinary bricks laid on handwoven rugs, deliberately blurring the boundary between archaeological relic and present day. In Sleeping Hyperion, meanwhile, the face of Romanian poet Mihai Eminescu rests on woollen blankets beside the ancient head of the sleeping Eriny.
The most fascinating part is discovering these dialogues. Cantor transforms the museum into a treasure hunt for connections, where ancient and contemporary worlds suddenly seem to speak the same language.