++++ The installation reminds you of a conference table, but instead of strategic papers, name signs and the other alibi snacks, there are on the black surface, place for place, carefully arranged absurd little handicraft works. Folded spectacles, strewn in sugar, a cup made of a paper serviette and a couple of paper clips, a banknote which has been drawn, a mini soccer field on which a ball-point pen confronts a paper clip, a paper puzzle, another cup composed of a figure made of toothpicks, and yet another cup which is only a perforated impression on paper.
To each place in this absurd sitting, a holder made of Plexiglas is assigned which has a connection with the object at each place. The materials which Ján Mancuška has used for his miniature sculptures are indeed profane: paper serviettes, wire, cigarette packages, toothpicks, matches, things which are mostly just lying about, the materials of civilization. But his objects have been made with great precision, his form of presentation is very accurate.
What erroneously seems to be the result of nervous hands at a boring sitting, as a kind of three-dimensional telephone doodle, has a high degree of handicraft quality.
Mancuška was born in Bratislava in 1972 and has been living in Prague since 1978 where he studied for seven years at the art academy. Since 1997 he has been a member of the group Bezhlavy jezdec, which means “headless rider”. In his installations Mancuška, with copies of the linguistic forms of business meetings based on efficiency and business etiquette, juxtaposes them to his almost touchingly home-made objects whose meaning only results from themselves with a subtle humour.
Frankensteiner Hof, Große Rittergasse 103.