Curatorial Preface: Istvan Kantor longs to create a new society that challenges society’s role and that of individualism. A Kantorian utopia of human excesses and freedoms unimagined. An Eden that would make Bosch's version pale and tame. But instead, Kantor is caught in an endless struggle to bring down the putrid and stale society in which he is forced to live. His potent arsenal of propaganda, extraction, instinct, persistence, surprise, machinery, convulsion, conflict and controversy are not enough. His insurrection fails. Always. His radical diagnosis Life=Art=Life remains pure poetic nonsense. But this constant failure is the source of Kantor's motivating life force. His blood surges with artistic energy and desire. Kantor's total surrender to his art makes his efforts as ferocious as the self styled war he is fighting.
Robert Kananaj, curator

Introduction: Istvan Kantor calls his confrontational museum interventions"failed insurrections". Kantor adds that "failed insurrections are the real insurrections because the victorious ones always betray their revolutionary ideals."While Kantor's work is rather poetical than political, his favorite terms, such as insurrection, conspiracy, takeover, subvertainment, total freedom, to only mention a few, are unfriendly and conflicting to the art system.It is no accident therefore that Kantor's new work titled "BLEEDING TO DEATH - The Beauty of Failed Insurrections" will be presented by OFFTHEMAPGALLERY in its isolated location, far from the usual art scenes.The solo exhibition will focus on Istvan Kantor's action based object-compositions, undefined somewhere between installation and performance, termed by the artist as "lebensraum-art in progress".Istvan Kantor's work questions the rules of institutional authority in today's technological society. His highly critical vision is often in the center of debates in the media. Kantor received the GovernerGeneral's Award for Visual and Media Arts in 2004. He has lived in Budapest, Paris, Montreal, London, New York, Berlin and has been based in Toronto since1991.
Antonia Lancaster, Gallery Director