Self-Portrait as Traffic Lights, 2022

C-prints, triptych
30 x 22 cm each
(31 x 23 x 4 cm framed)
edition: 1/3 + 2 AP

Flaviu Cacoveanu’s works in the exhibition – photographs, a video and a neon work – are shown as a sequence of interventions in the three rooms on the upper gallery floor. The decision to have them punctuate the space reflects the prominence of spontaneous gestures in the artist’s process. His practice originates frequently from within his phone, which he describes as an “artist-run phone”: a space where he takes notes and doodles ideas. Oftentimes these are prompted by chance encounters and observations in the everyday urban environment. The artist reacts to its many impulses in an intuitive and laid-back way – an attitude that translates from his initial screen-mediated actions to the final works.

Untitled (Orange) brings a touch of eeriness in the mundane through an unexpected gesture. Orange refers not only to the fruit, but also to the color. It is as if the artist is „painting” performatively an occurrence in the city life, although his medium of choice is photography.

Driven by the question of what a performative self-image can be today, Flaviu Cacoveanu makes himself reflect his surroundings with the tryptich Self-Portrait as Traffic Lights. The straightforwardness of his pose serves as a canvas for the chromatic traces left on his face by the red, yellow and green traffic lights.

Untitled (Receipt), a looping video of a receipt floating in the wind, evidences the same strategy: through seemingly nonchalant, yet sharp observations, the artist examines the ambiguity and shades of meaning related to everyday human experience.