bio
Anton Markov (b. 1987, Tbilisi) is a visual artist based in Belgrade. His practice investigates the structural logic of urban environments and non-human spatiality. Through fragmentation and visual isolation, Markov examines architectural and infrastructural elements as autonomous systems existing beyond anthropocentric reading.
His methodology is rooted in formal rigor, revealing the physical weight and resistance of matter. In Markov’s work, an analytical stance serves as a tool for distancing, transforming photography into a means of recording a world that exists in a state of fundamental indifference.
He studied Fine Art at the British Higher School of Art and Design (Moscow) and architecture at RMIT University (Melbourne). His work has been presented in a number of group exhibitions, including projects developed during his studies at BHSAD.
artist statement
My practice is an investigation into the urban environment as an autonomous material order. At the core of my work is the Morphology of Absence—spatial configurations stripped of functional and social narratives, revealed through the seams, joints, and failures of infrastructure. I employ a method of formal rigor, utilizing frontal compositions and low-key lighting to isolate fragments of reality. This process renders them as hermetic structures, fixated on the physical weight and resistance of matter. In contrast to the tradition of contemplative formalism, I assert the opacity of the material world, where the density of black functions not as a decorative device, but as a mechanism for confronting this reality.
My methodology is built upon a radical social distance from the environment. In this context, photography serves to suppress the reflex to explain or interpret. It is a way of inhabiting space through a fixation on cracks, corners, and the mute planes of concrete. This approach allows me to exist simultaneously within and outside the world—to appropriate space without engaging in dialogue. The work appeals to the Uncanny (Unheimliche), framed not as a psychological state but as the physical fact of encountering a reality that is complete without us. The frame captures a moment of subjective evacuation, leaving the viewer alone with the pressure of surfaces and the opaque allure of concrete and darkness.
This perspective is heightened by the condition of forced displacement, where the urban environment is stripped of its habitual context. As functional associations dissolve, the material underside of the city is exposed, transmuting emotional discomfort into a visual register. Ultimately, my practice documents the sovereignty of a world existing in a mode of fundamental indifference.
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