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Ján Mančuška
The Other (I asked my wife to blacken all parts of my body, which I cannot see), 2007

Installation view: Sorry for being so late, westlondonprojects, London, 2007, Photo: Andy Keate

Ján Mančuška

Collection

Black and white positive 35mm filmstrips, aluminum bar, light box
Dimensions site specific

The Other (I asked my wife to blacken all parts of my body, which I cannot see) consists of a single row of suspended filmstrips, illuminated by a large-scale light box. The film captures a woman covering her husband’s body with black paint. As his body slowly becomes blacker and blacker, he strains to try and see the paint in a mirror. His figure is squirming, agitated he can feel his body being painted, but as much as he tries, he cannot see it. In the end sequence, paint covers most of his face and body. Here, as in other works by Ján Mancuška, issues of private versus public space are visually played out. Ironically the “spaces,” or parts, of one’s body that are public are exactly those that remain off limits to one's own sight. Without the use of a mirror, we don't have access to the image that we project in public. Without “the other” we cannot mirror ourselves in the world.
The Other (I asked my wife to blacken all parts of my body, which I cannot see) is the record of a performance I initiated with my friends. This is very important because the title consists of a very personal message—I asked my wife—but the people photographed are in fact not me nor my wife. The important fact is that they were a real couple. So there’s this sense of a very intimate situation, the trust, because if you show your body you should trust the other person…. I asked the girl to paint the parts of the body of the naked man—but just the parts that you cannot see. So the process actually consisted of him bending back, and reacting to the girl painting him, saying: “Stop, I see it!” So she started to paint, and stopped when he could see it. It was not I who told her that she should paint the back and then the face, it was more spontaneous, also when it was getting to the point where there was no other part of the body which you could not see. So, the surprise is how big parts of yourself you cannot see, I mean specifically the face, which is so significant, which is yourself somehow, you cannot see it. So there are two points, one point is how much we are dependent on others, The Other, this otherness is so present there. The other thing is the overall representation, and for me this representation doesn’t necessarily only have a connection to the art, but the representation is for instance a mirror, the mirror effect, the change that you see in yourself.
Then I chose this setup, which is big lightbox and the hanging filmstrips. Because cinematography comes from this, it is indeed dematerialized and then you put light through something that is not visible, which makes the whole cinematography so immaterial, but at the same time you understand the process, because you are so connected to the process and field. This time I dismantled these things, I showed the material of what is normally not seen, the film strips and the light as an object.[1]

[1] Ján Mancuška in an interview at TBA21, Vienna, in 2008.

*1972 in Bratislava, Slovakia I † 2011 in Prague, Czech Republic

Artists Website:

http://janmancuska.com/en/home

RELATED PROGRAM

Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary. Collection as Aleph | March 6–October 26, 2008 | Kunsthaus Graz

Passages. Travels in Hyperspace
October 6, 2010-February 21, 2011 | LABoral, Gijón / Spain

Artists

Ján Mančuška

Ján MančuškaThe Other (I asked my wife to blacken all parts of my body, which I cannot see), 2007

Ján Mančuška
The Other (I asked my wife to blacken all parts of my body, which I cannot see), 2007