Mančuška Ján 1972–2011

Untitled, 1998

oil on canvas, frame, 90 × 110 cm, professionally restored
The offered painting by Ján Mančuška from 1998 belongs to the early period of the artist's work from the end of his university studies, when he worked together with Josef Bolf, Tomáš Vaňek and Jan Šerých as a member of the group Bezhlavý jezdec (Headless Horseman, 1996-2002). The authors were not united by a single artistic programme, but rather by a common intention to define themselves against the previous tendencies of the 1980s and 1990s. In their work they dealt with and related to specific stories and events growing out of the local context. They responded ironically to the tradition of domestic DIYs and commented on local realities. At the beginning of the new millennium, they established themselves as prominent artists on the Czech art scene, even though they were already moving in a different direction in their future work. Ján Mančuška created a series of paintings in this short period, reminiscent of the training of Vladimír Kokolia, but in which he found his own distinctive expression. The paintings and drawings, which are now among the lesser-known works of Mančuška's oeuvre, are characterised by an intense and concentrated exploration of the painting medium and its expressive possibilities. The abstracted paintings, usually consisting of bold splashes of colour, range from subtle delicate drawing to expressive, relaxed painterly gestures. Although at first glance they appear abstract, they are usually based on a specific motif whose outlines and shapes are only hinted at in the painting. In the painting Untitled (1998), a series of concentric circles and shapes of colour shine against a black background, resembling an orphic composition of abstract signs referring to the space of the universe. The main focus here, however, is a set of shapes, organically shaped and interconnected, resembling cells or bodily organs, including the embryo of a human foetus. It may thus be a birth hidden in the depths of the body, paralleling the birth of the world as a whole. The extraordinary painterly and colourful qualities of Mančuška's paintings did not refer only to themselves; through them the artist was probably looking for ways to express his intention, exploring their possibilities of communication. In the following period, Mančuška focused on conceptual expressions, installations and working with language, and established himself as one of the key figures on the Czech and international art scene. Ján Mančuška (1972-2011) graduated in 1998 from the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in the studio of Jitka Svobodová, Vladimír Kokolia and Vladimír Skrepl. In 2004, he received the Jindřich Chalupecký Prize, and during his lifetime he received international recognition and exhibited in prestigious international galleries and shows, such as Kunsthalle Basel, Franfurkter Kunstverein, Meyer Riegger, Andrew Kreps, Art Museum in Tel Aviv and others. In 2005 he represented the Czech pavilion at the Venice Biennale. In 2009, Mančuška was represented by his installation at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York in a unique exhibition of post-war and contemporary drawings from the Judith Rothschild Foundation's collection. He was briefly involved in painting, but soon moved from painting to objects and installations in which he developed a post-conceptual approach to working with language, particularly the collision between language and story/narrative. For his work he used the most ordinary everyday objects, reflecting social reality. Other works dealt with language, its meaning and significance, confronting the viewer with the overlapping contexts, situations and social space in which the works are exhibited. In recent years he has also concentrated on the medium of film. Ján Mančuška died prematurely in 2011.