Stars in a Pit Cave
Adi Matei

Pressrelease

Akin to the work of a DJ, who draws a trajectory between different music styles and genres, Adi Matei’s artistic approach is rooted in blending socio-political and poetic layers with an emphasis on the new expressions of the absurd. Interrogating the role of art in the context of representation, his work is also perceived as a conceptual playground where the dialogue between past and present surfaces.

The exhibition “Stars in a pit cave” highlights the failure of an education indifferent to evolution, unconcerned with granting the time and means needed for the process of transformation foundational to change, to durable understanding. The objects placed in the gallery space have messages directed at potential visitors. Using recent technological media, the installation transposes ideas in objects which themselves generate abstract situations.

The artist’s works are inspired equally by nature and by human behavior. They acquire meaning and content exclusively in the context of direct rapport, and their purpose is making the exhibition visitors move from facile perception and understanding to a potential realm of cognition. This primarily presupposes their free, voluntary consent before their own transformation and calls for the additional effort needed to confront the little anxieties they are being challenged to.

Adi Matei studied visual arts at the University of Art and Design in Cluj and at L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Nantes. In 2012 his exhibition “Moon Shuffle” was hosted by the Gallery of Contemporary Art in Sibiu and he received the Constantin Brâncuși scholarship at the Cité des Arts in Paris. In 2013 he represented Romania at the Venice Biennale in a group exhibition with his “Bird in a room” project and he was an artist in residence at the Kultur Kontakt in Viena.