50 Year Retrospective: Bob Cantius

Exhibition:  November 6 – 29, 2015
Opening Reception:  Friday, Nov 6 – 5:30 to 8:30pm
Meet & Greet / Closing:  Sunday, Nov 29  –  12 to 5pm

Robert Arthur Cantius was born (1938) and raised in Paterson, NJ. A famous muse for Alan Ginsberg and William Carlos Williams, Paterson would likewise inform Cantius’ work as a poet, sculptor, teacher and photographer. A graduate of Montclair State University and the NYU Film Institute, Cantius worked briefly at Giant Balloon Parades Incorporated before spending 25 years teaching art, graphic design, photography and film-making at the elementary, high school, & college levels in New Jersey.

Bob Cantius’ interest in inner-city life and “photographic anthropological” studies has extended beyond Paterson, NJ; including cities like Holyoke, Springfield, Turners Falls, Shelburne Falls, Greenfield, Northampton, Brattleboro, Bellows Falls as well as other northeastern cities including Trenton and Newark, NJ and Scranton, Pennsylvania.

“There can be no continuum in a vacuum. We select, abstract, and create within a communal and universal life experience with citizen-others; other souls on the uncommon streets and in those hometowns where we love and toil. As an artist and photographer, I describe my approach and philosophy toward my work in terms I refer to as the “window and mirror” experience. My view and “point of view” converge in “time and place” within the many moments and events of the world around me; and those events and moments that have led me to that “point in time”.”  – Bob Cantius