Born 1982 in Moscow, Russia
Lives and works in New York, NY
Sanya Kantarovsky works across mediums, including sculpture, animation and curation, with painting remaining at the center of his practice. Teeming with wry humor and unearthly narratives, Kantarovsky’s paintings propose scenarios of turmoil and investigate liminal spaces, physical proximities, affect, and cruelty. His sometimes delicate and often macabre subjects grapple with the confines of their bodies, interacting with one another in a painterly satire of status anxiety and existential crises.
In 2024 Sanya Kantarovsky's works were on view at Palazzo Barberini in the group exhibition Effetto Notte: Nuovo Realismo Americano in collaboration with Aïshti Foundation. The artist has recently been the subject of institutional solo shows at Aspen Art Museum, Kunsthalle Basel and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin. His works have been presented in institutions such as Kunsthalle Zurich; Drawing Center, New York; Whitechapel Gallery, London; Baltic Triennial 13, Vilnius; Jewish Museum, New York and Sculpture Center, New York.
Kantarovsky’s works are held in the permanent collections of Aïshti Foundation, Beirut; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; Pinault Collection, Paris; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; Kadist Art Foundation, Paris; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, among others.