CONCEPTUAL PLAY
In dialogue with Flaviu Cacoveanu
FVTVRIST Magazine // Parliament Gallery
27 March 2026
What you see can mean many things, but what matters now is what it means to you.
Through seemingly nonchalant yet incisive observations and gestures, Flaviu Cacoveanu reflects on everyday life, the surrounding world, and current events, articulating a poetic field in which perception itself becomes a site of “conceptual play”.
Artist's solo show "Conceptual play" is on view at Parliament Gallery until the 11th of April.
Exhibition view ©Flaviu Cacoveanu, courtesy of Parliament.
Your exhibition title Conceptual Play suggests a tension between structure and openness. How do play and concept operate in your work?
For me the relationship is a bit the opposite of what one might expect. There is often quite a lot of structure in things that surround us, at the beginning, and what I’m actually looking for is where that structure ends and where play begins.
So Conceptual Play is not just a title, but also a way to approach the work. “Conceptual” and “play” almost contradict each other: one suggests something defined and quite restrictive, the other something open and loose. This kind of tension is important to me for example. I don’t try to resolve it, but rather to work within it.
It’s also an attitude that goes beyond this specific exhibition. It’s part of how I think and how I approach things in general, in a quite ambivalent manner.
Your work often relies on minimal gestures: small shifts, inversions, almost invisible interventions. What draws you to these subtle actions?
I’m interested in how something very simple can have an effect on a larger scale. If you look at nature, for example, things often develop in the most direct and efficient way, a river finds its path without forcing it.
There’s something very intuitive in that, and I feel close to this way of thinking and doing things. Also, the idea of the butterfly effect from Chaos Theory comes into play, the notion that a small gesture can trigger something much bigger over time. So for me, working with simple gestures is a way to start from what is already there, from something very immediate. And then, from that point, it can expand or morph into something else, something bigger. It doesn’t need to be exaggerated to have an impact.
Exhibition view ©Flaviu Cacoveanu, courtesy of Parliament
Exhibition view ©Flaviu Cacoveanu, courtesy of Parliament
Exhibition view ©Flaviu Cacoveanu, courtesy of Parliament
These gestures seem rather intuitive. How do you recognize which ones to develop into a work?
You’re right - there isn’t really a fixed method for that. I don’t start with a clear plan or a defined goal.
It’s more about staying open and reacting to what’s around me. Sometimes I intervene, sometimes I just observe and let things affect me. It’s a kind of back-and-forth.
I don’t decide in advance what I will produce. I try to keep things flexible and respond to what appears in the moment. It’s an open process, where intuition is not just something spontaneous, but also something that builds over time through attention.
You introduce the term “already made,” echoing but shifting away from Duchamp’s readymade. What does this notion mean for you?
I work a lot with language, so I like to adapt or slightly shift existing terms.
The idea of the “already made” comes from thinking about repetition and circulation, of images, ideas, information. We are surrounded by things that have already been done, said, or produced in some form.
So I started asking myself: does that mean we can’t do these things again? Or does it just mean that we are always working within something that already exists?
For me, it’s more about acknowledging that condition. The “already made” reflects this ongoing circulation, and also the current state of the world, where the same things reappear and take on new meanings depending on context.
Exhibition view ©Flaviu Cacoveanu, courtesy of Parliament
This leads to the question of authorship. How do you approach authorship today, especially in relation to image-making?
I think authorship is becoming more and more unclear.
The phone, for example, plays a big role in my practice. It’s not just a tool, it’s also a space, it’s my on-the-go studio. I use it to take images, videos, draw, edit, communicate… a lot of things happen there.
But at the same time, images are not entirely under our control anymore. Algorithms adjust them automatically ~ light, contrast, details ~ without us necessarily noticing. So the final image is not fully ours. And then there is also the way images are circulated, how they are shared so quickly, how they can become viral and collectively recognized.
That already shifts the idea of authorship. And I don’t think I have a clear answer to what it means today. I’m still trying to understand it, but I’m also okay with not defining it too precisely. Keeping some ambiguity feels more honest at this point.
Your installations bring together photography, objects, text, videos. Do these media have specific roles, or do they function more as a whole?
For this exhibition, I used a certain combination of elements, but it’s not something fixed in my practice. It can change depending on the context, the space, or even the moment and my mood.
The process is quite open. Even while installing the show, things were still shifting, adjusting small changes, decisions being made until the very last moment before the opening.
So I see the exhibition more as a temporary state. The works come together in a certain way at a certain time, but that can always evolve. It’s not about fixing something once and for all.
Your work often begins with everyday observations and moves toward something more abstract or linguistic. Do you feel something is lost or gained in that shift?
I wouldn’t say it’s about losing or gaining, but more about transforming.
I’m interested in starting from something very simple or familiar, something we all recognize, and then letting it shift into another form. Not to erase where it comes from, but to open it up.
I’ve been thinking about this idea of “pattern weaving,” which I like. It’s about how different elements connect and form something on a bigger scale, like a big picture, that is not completely fixed and is still ongoing.
There’s also a play between presence and absence in my work, what is visible and what is not. That creates a space where things are not fully defined, and where the viewer can move between different interpretations.
Finally, are there any upcoming projects you can share?
There are always things developing in the background, but nothing I would like to mention at this point.
Right now, I prefer to stay focused on the current exhibition while it’s still open and see where it goes. It feels important to let things unfold before moving on too quickly, after all even an exhibition has a life of its own, and I would like to observe that currently.
About Flaviu Cacoveanu
Flaviu Cacoveanu (b. 1989, Cluj, RO) lives and works in Berlin (DE). His practice unfolds on the border of multiple media. His artistic discourse simultaneously embraces - from a performative perspective - photography, video, installation, ready-made objects, and it mainly occurs at the point where they intertwine. His profoundly intuitive process is sensitive to the interplay between the elements and materials he carefully selects.
His works have been exhibited amongst others at Parliament Gallery in Paris (FR), Lutnita Gallery in Chisinau (MD), Liste Art Fair 2024 in Basel (CH), Baronian Gallery in Brussels (BE), NADA Villa Warsaw in Warsaw (PL), Art Brussels 2023 in Brussels (BE), Art Au Centre 2023 in Liege (BE), The National Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest (RO) and at the Art Encounters Biennial 2021 in Timisoara (RO).
Source: Parliament
