Through the critical deconstruction of signs and symbols, Lou Cantor traces how meaning is endlessly reframed and re-inscribed, revealing both the failure and beauty of our attempts to understand one another.

Lou Cantor is a Berlin-based artist collective founded in 2011, composed of Józefina Chętko and Kolja Glaeser, whose main scope of interest is rooted in intersubjectivity and the complexities of interpersonal communication. Their practice examines these entanglements through a conceptual lens attuned to the instability of language and perception. Engaging with the idea of the “Empire of Signs,” as coined by a prominent French theorist, the collective explores the mutability of meaning – where sign, signal, and context continually loop and blur, leaving interpretation suspended in perpetual flux.

Working across various media, Lou Cantor navigates a saturated semiotic landscape in which communication is both the medium and the subject of inquiry. Through the critical deconstruction of signs and symbols, their work reveals how meaning is constantly reframed and re-inscribed – tracing not only the failures of communication but its potential beauty. This philosophical and linguistic inquiry is deeply embedded in their research-based practice, which includes a sustained engagement with publishing platforms such as Sternberg Press and MIT Press, as well as contributions to Kwartalnik Rzeźby Orońsko.

Recent solo exhibitions include Parallax, Medūza Gallery, Vilnius (2024); Endless Eye, Orońsko Sculpture Center, Orońsko (2023); and Time Crystals, Sgomento, Zürich (2022). They have also participated in Ars Electronica (Linz); Hypersea, Monaco (2018, curated by Juliette Desorgues); The Policeman’s Beard is Half Constructed, Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn (2017); Spiritual Reality, Decad, Berlin (2017); Fellow Travelers, apexart, New York (2017); Cyborg Dreams, Pitt St, New York (2017); and The Labour of Watching, Leto gallery, Warsaw, and OSLO10, Basel (2015/2016). Other group exhibitions include Language and Misunderstanding, CUNY, New York (2015); Epistemic Excess, Artists Space, New York (2015); the 7th Berlin Biennale; New National Art, Museum of Modern Art Warsaw; 83 Pitt St, New York (2017); Transit Gallery, Prague (2016); and the 44th Salón Nacional de Artistas, Pereira, Colombia (2016).

Their lecture performance Time Farm was presented at CUNY in 2015. Lou Cantor has also been featured in talks and performances at institutions such as ICA Miami, Columbia University, MoMA New York, the Serpentine Pavilion, ICA London, Hamburger Bahnhof, Culturgest, Teatro Stabile del Veneto "Carlo Goldoni", CAC Vilnius, and others.

Selected public and private collections include the Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź, Hotel Europejski Collection in Warsaw, ADAC Collection in Munich, and the Zita Collection in Fidar.

Featured Works

For freedom!

The Labor of Watching. The Endless Eye

The Policeman's Beard is Half Constructed

Fellow Travellers

Flash Art 

artgenève 10th Edition: Always On the Mark

Clouds, 2013

by Lou Cantor in collaboration with Paweł Althamer

The Clouds is a monumental inflatable sculpture, 13 meters long and over 6 meters high, conceived by Lou Cantor in collaboration with Paweł Althamer. Its soft, ambiguous form evokes both a drifting cloud and a human skull lying on its side. This visual ambiguity is not incidental, but rather central to the work’s inquiry: what determines what we see?

The sculpture draws on the childhood activity of gazing at clouds and projecting familiar shapes onto their abstract forms—a playful act of interpretation that also reflects deeper psychological processes. At once innocent and uncanny, The Cloud invites viewers to confront the threshold between the benign and the eerie, the imaginative and the repressed. The skull, a classic symbol of mortality, lies hidden in plain sight—just as, according to Freudian theory, unconscious material often disguises itself through distortion and play.

This interest in the mechanics of perception extends from Lou Cantor’s long-term research project Labor of Watching, which investigates how our vision is never objective, but always mediated by culture, memory, language, and conditioning. What we “see” is not simply what strikes the retina, but a composite of visual data and learned interpretation. In this light, The Cloud becomes more than an object: it is a device for revealing the perceptual frameworks we carry within us.

The sculpture also resonates with recurring motifs in Paweł Althamer’s practice—particularly his fascination with childhood, the mystical, and altered states of consciousness. Together, these elements create a work that speaks to the thresholds between seeing and knowing, imagination and memory.