Interview with the Theatre Optique juror Ján Mančuška
Slovakian artist, whose projects deal with contextual analysis of everyday reality, became a juror of the 7th Fresh Film Fest in the Animated and Experimental Student Films section Theatre Optique.
Ján Mančuška
Ján Mančuška
Slovakian artist, whose projects deal with contextual analysis of everyday reality. Many spheres of art meet in his work – literature, film, conceptual art, theater, installations, video and text. He often sets apart text as both object and sign, and explores various possibilities of non-linear reading. He takes keen interest in the reflection of both film and theatrical language. His work was on display in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, MOMA New York, Kunsthalle Basel, the Tranzitdisplay gallery in Prague, on the stage of the Takkelloftet Royal Theater in Copenhagen and in the HAU2 Theatre in Berlin.
Film is essential for me
They call you a conceptual artist very often. Do you find it precise? In your work, do you consider form to be inferior to idea?
The term conceptual artist is rooted in our domestic context a lot, and this is how I understand it too. Actually, the development of the Czech post-war art has seen no conceptual art in its pure or radical form which would be comparable to the developments in the USA of the 1960s-1970s. And so this term is used to define a certain artistic practice linked with my generation and the following ones. In the western world, however, this is a dominant artistic approach and so the term “conceptual” might sound even a little funny. Yes, the process of thinking is paramount to my work. It is also important that contemporary art operates across fields, which is essential for my work too.
As a juror of the Animated and Experimental Student Films section, you will have to decide which film is the best. What do you consider most important regarding quality in a film?
This is of course a difficult question. Putting it very briefly, what I look for in art as a spectator (and juror is just one part of him) is radicalism of approach.
What is your relation to films in general? Do you go to the movies? Is film in any way exceptional for you?
Film is absolutely essential for me. Firstly, it is my natural context because both my parents are filmmakers, as a child I grew up at FAMU. Secondly, film as a medium has played an essential role in my recent work, though in a form transformed into fine arts. Of course I go to see the movies. Also, theoretical starting points and reflections on cinematography on the part of related fields are important for me.
Will the visitors of the Fresh Film Fest soon have an opportunity to attend an exhibition of your works? Are you preparing an exhibition or another project in the Czech Republic?
I’m now preparing most of my projects abroad. However, some of my works are on display in exhibitions which are currently on. I exhibit a project called “A Reflection” (“Odlesk”) at the venue of Dům U prstenu as a part of the permanent collection of the contemporary Czech art of the City Gallery Prague. But I want to and certainly will exhibit in the Czech Republic.
