Fading Studies, an exhibition of new works by Răzvan Anton, is scheduled to open at Gaep on February 28.

The exhibition presents works rooted in a family collection of images, namely 8mm footage shot mostly by the artist’s father during the 1970s and 1980s. This material prompts a significant body of new sun prints and a two-channel video, Archival Study (Places and Portraits), to be featured in the exhibition.

This is the artist’s third solo show at Gaep, after Studies of Gaze in 2020 and Mnemonics in 2015.

After working for several years with public archives such as the Minerva Press Photo Archive, Anton began in 2022 to look at his family’s collection. The works in the exhibition exemplify this change in his practice. Nonetheless, he continues to use a heliographic technique to extract a hidden meaning from the surface of old images. “Anton starts by hatching perforated paper sheets with a blue ball pen, then places a transparent screen with the negative of the found image on them. Finally, he puts the layered sheets on the windows of his studio and lets the sun print the image through a slow process that takes weeks or months, depending on the season.”

Răzvan Anton, who lives and works in Cluj-Napoca, received an MA degree in drawing from Camberwell College of Arts London, following an MA at the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca. His work has been included in exhibitions at MGML – Match Gallery (Ljubljana, 2021), Motorenhalle/riesa efau (Dresden, 2019), Politecnico di Milano – Galleria del Progetto (Milan, 2019) and in the biennials 15th Bienal de la Habana (Havana, 2024) and Art Encounters (Timișoara, 2017), among other places. Anton was artist-in-residence at MuseumsQuartier in Vienna and at The House by the Synagogue, Mediaș, as part of the project Absence as Heritage/TRACES.

The exhibition is open until April 12.

Photo: Răzvan Anton, Fading Study (couple walking outside the block), 2023, blue ball pen on perforated paper, 42 x 60 cm, courtesy of Gaep

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