Künstlerhaus Bethanien

Ján Mancuska, who is representing the Czech Republic at this year’s Biennale in Venice along with two other artists, has been working for some time now by using simple, everyday objects in the tradition of Arte Povera, but combines this form with a specifically Eastern European development of conceptual art in which language acquires a highly spatial significance. Mancuska frequently employs word sequences, strings of text or threads of narration to break familiar linguistic categories by subjecting the viewer to a sensuous experience of space.

Jan Mancuska’s installation in Studio 2 tells the true story of a woman named Eva, who apparently finally left her partner because he had the enervating habit of tilting the television ninety degrees sideways so that he had a better view of the screen when stretched out on the couch lying on his side. However, Mancuska is not satisfied with the narrative alone. He forces the visitor into a kind of three-dimensional storyboard. Members of the public have to hurry from couch to couch in this installation, in order to follow the action sequence by sequence as it comes out of the monitors in voice-over fragments.

In this way, the narrative becomes an experiment in spatial (and artistic) perception, in which the spoken language becomes a spatial challenge for the viewer.