Monty Cantsin [Istvan Kantor] recevies gg award

[anna balint]

Thank you, George for the details.

nn, i don't know what your artistic
credo is presently, i don't see much except insults
at the adress of the most various people.

Why to accept such a prestigious prize?
If i would know more about your background perhaps
it would be enough to refer to one of the main
criteria of the historical avant-garde, the
unity of life and art. Avant-garde never was seeking
isolation and never aimed to be at the periphery of 
society. It's another question that many of these
artists ended at the Gulag, or in best cases were 
condemned to oblivion. 
I learned for instance that when Lajos Kassak died 
- he was one of the most outstanding artist of the Hungarian 
avant-garde, he founded among others the international 
activist magazine MA - almost everyone was shocked to find 
out that he was alive till the late 60's. So much he was 
ignored, that people beleived that he was dead since longtime.
I also learned through an artistic action of Gyorgy
Jovanovics in the 70's where artists and writers 
of the historical avant-garde were present, 
that those people were happy to gain recognition even 
if not personally, but in the work of the next generation. 
Jovanovics produced fake radio news in a small
gallery in Budapest that commented the work of the 
new generation of the Hungarian avant-garde artists.

So if you would ask me, i am extremely proud that
once in the life, it's not for instance George Bush
who makes news at Reuters, but one of the artists 
i appreciate and respect the most.

Look at the body of work of Istvan Kantor/Monty Cantsin, 
all communication guerilla, all projects of artistic 
appropiation of state priviledges, partly also the 
anticopyright movement, poetry performers, 
noise producers, they all  owe him something. Not speaking
about the robotics performances that so far have been
not appropiated, nothing even similar is experienced
or produced. Why would he not gain recognition?

greetings,
Anna 


3/7/2004 1:38:18 AM, George Lessard <media at web.net> wrote:

>Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts: Announcement of 
>laureates
>
>http://www.canadacouncil.ca/news/pressreleases/co0406-e.asp
>Downloadable images of the artists and selected works are available on 
>the Canada Council web site: www.canadacouncil.ca/prizes/ggvma
>http://www.canadacouncil.ca/prizes/ggvma/2004/default.asp
>
>Istvan Kantor
>http://www.canadacouncil.ca/prizes/ggvma/2004/kantor-e.asp
>
>Istvan Kantor (also known previously as Monty Cantsin) is a media 
>artist/producer active in performance art, robotics, installation, 
>sound, music, video and new media. Kantor’s interactive robotic 
>performance work has been featured at Ars Electronica 2000. He has 
>received the Telefilm Canada Award for Best Canadian Video (1998) and 
>the Transmediale 2001 video award in Berlin. His avant-garde work has 
>been described by the media as rebellious and anti-authoritarian, as 
>well as technically innovative and highly experimental. Istvan Kantor 
>has lived in Budapest, Paris, Montreal and New York. He currently lives 
>in Toronto.
>
>Jury citation: “Istvan Kantor’s work in video and performance art is on 
>the cutting and critical edge of contemporary art. His is an aggressive 
>and unapologetic aesthetic of excess. Kantor’s interdisciplinary, 
>no-holds-barred, neo-Dada art has earned him a large international 
>following and a unique reputation. He embraces technology in order to 
>confront, and revolt against, the mind-numbing and oppressive nature of 
>technology and the power structures it supports.”
>
>"... From the time of his immigration to Canada from Hungary in 1977, 
>Istvan Kantor has created a body of work remarkable for its demonic 
>energy, its subversive vision, and its encompassing range. He has 
>explored mail art, music, kinetic sculpture, multi-media installation 
>and, most prominently, performance art and video. He founded an 
>indefinable and conspiratorial movement he called neoism. The intent of 
>Kantor's work has always been to disrupt closed systems of power, 
>political and aesthetic, to lay bare the ways in which technology 
>transforms human bodies and minds into elements of a vast robotic 
>machine, and to confront today's deadening systems of technological 
>control. The concept that most broadly governs Kantor's vision is 
>“accumulation.” “In the land of accumulation all activity remains 
>activated, causing continuous interventions, overlapping structures, 
>sudden changes, global explosions, turmoil, tumult, turbulence, 
>everything happens at once and simultaneously,” Kantor writes. “It's 
>accumulation that makes the earth shake at six o'clock and demolishes 
>the difference between art and life, labour and leisure.”..."
>{Daniel Baird is art editor of The Brooklyn Rail, a New York-based 
>magazine about the arts, politics and culture. }
>
>In addition to a $15,000 prize, each laureate will be presented with an 
>original artwork created by Nova Scotia ceramic artist Walter Ostrom, 
>winner of the 2003 Saidye Bronfman Award.
>
>
>