Istvan Kantor (aka "

Monty Cantsin Monty Cantsin is a multiple-use name that anyone can adopt, but has close ties to Neoism. Monty Cantsin was originally conceived as an "open pop star." In a philosophy anticipating that of free software and open source, anyone could perform in his ...

", and "Amen!") ( hu, Kántor István; born August 27, 1949, Hungary) is a Canadian

performance A performance is an act of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. It is also defined as the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function. Management science In the work place ...

and

video art Video art is an art form which relies on using video technology as a visual and audio medium. Video art emerged during the late 1960s as new consumer video technology such as video tape recorders became available outside corporate broadcasting. ...

ist, industrial music and

electropop Electropop is a hybrid music genre combining elements of electronic and pop genres. Writer Hollin Jones has described it as a variant of synth-pop with heavy emphasis on its electronic sound. The genre was developed in the 1980s and saw a r ...

singer, and one of the early members of

Neoism Neoism is a parodistic -ism. It refers both to a specific subcultural network of artistic performance and media experimentalists, and, more generally, to a practical underground philosophy. It operates with collectively shared pseudonyms and ide ...

Life

Kantor was born in Hungary on August 27, 1949. In the 1970s, he studied medicine, but also participated in the underground arts scene of communist

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

that centered on the art historian László Beke.

Work

Early work

In 1976, at the Young Art Club in Budapest, Cantsin met the American prankster and

mail art Mail art, also known as postal art and correspondence art, is an artistic movement centered on sending small-scale works through the postal service. It initially developed out of what eventually became Ray Johnson's New York Correspondence Scho ...

ist David Zack. Zack suggested the idea of adopting the multiple identity

, which Kantor accepted, to the extent that it became chiefly associated with him. Returning to Montreal, he organized a Mail Art show, "The Brain in the Mail", and in 1979 founded the

movement. Soon afterwards,

expanded into an international subcultural network that collectively used the

identity.

Blood performances

Kantor's own work in the late 1970s and early 1980s consisted most notably of the "Blood Campaign", an ongoing series of performances in which he takes his own blood and splashes it onto walls, canvases or into the audience. At the same time, he continued to work within the

Neoist Neoism is a parodistic -ism. It refers both to a specific subcultural network of artistic performance and media experimentalists, and, more generally, to a practical underground philosophy. It operates with collectively shared pseudonyms and id ...

network, co-organizing and participating in a series of Neoist festivals, which began as "Apartment Festivals", which were also called simply "APTs". His more controversial works involve

vandalism Vandalism is the action involving deliberate destruction of or damage to public or private property. The term includes property damage, such as graffiti and #Defacement, defacement directed towards any property without permission of the owne ...

and gore, painting large X's in his own blood on the walls of modern art museums including next to two

Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th century, he is kn ...

paintings at the MOMA in 1988 and at the

Jeff Koons Jeffrey Lynn Koons (; born January 21, 1955) is an American artist recognized for his work dealing with popular culture and his sculptures depicting everyday objects, including balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror-Surface fi ...

retrospective at the Whitney Museum in 2016. In doing so he has been banned from some art galleries, a status he holds with pride. In 2004, he threw a vial of his own blood on a wall beside a sculpture of

Michael Jackson Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the "King of Pop", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Over a ...

Paul McCarthy Paul McCarthy (born August 4, 1945) is a contemporary artist who lives and works in Los Angeles, California. Life McCarthy was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1945. He studied art at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, and later continued ...

in the

Hamburger Bahnhof Hamburger Bahnhof is the former terminus of the Berlin–Hamburg Railway in Berlin, Germany, on Invalidenstrasse in the Moabit district opposite the Charité hospital. Today it serves as a contemporary art museum, the , part of the Berlin ...

contemporary art museum of

Berlin Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...

. Although his later work has been dismissed as a simple vandalism by some parts of the media. Curator Laura O’Reilly, commenting on Istvan Kantors writing "Monty Cantsin" on a piece by artist Nelson Saiers in The Hole Shop gallery in New York, said "There’s a fine line between pissing on someone else’s piece as a form self expression — if you’re going to call that art".

Robotic art

Past work also includes noise installations and performances with electrically modified file cabinets. He also founded the "Machine Sex Action Group" which realizes theatrical cyber-futuristic body performances in an S/M style. The human body in its relation to machines, explored both in its apocalyptic and subversive potentials remains a major theme of his work.

Awards

In March 2004 he was awarded the Canadian

Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts The Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts are annual awards for achievements in visual and media arts in Canada. Up to eight awards are presented annually with the prize amount is $25,000 Created in 2000 by then Governor General Ad ...

References

External links

Istvan Kantor's website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kantor, Istvan Canadian performance artists Hungarian performance artists Hungarian emigrants to Canada Artists from Budapest 1949 births Living people Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts winners Canadian sound artists Robotic art Canadian installation artists