Oskár Čepan Award 2014 – Jaroslav Kyša
“In my current work I am trying to elaborate on the theme of an unceasing need and (paradoxically dysfunctional) endeavor of man to preserve memory and its meaning by various monuments. As suggested by Robert Musil in his 1927 essay ‘Monuments’ – durability and permanence of a monument is not the necessary and ideal solution to the problem of forgetting. Permanence can lead to a ‘calcification of memory,’ and thus become the first step in forgetting. Monuments are places, which by virtue of their form, grandiosity
and realization, impose on us the time to think. In my objects, photography or interventions I strive for a different way to interpret the concept of monument – unstable, ambiguous, producing new associations. Thus I create ‘unstable objects – models of monuments’ in a material form determined solely by physical laws like magnetism or various electrical mechanisms.”
Jaroslav Kyša is a graduate of the Studio of Free Creativity under the supervision of prof. Juraj Bartusz, academic sculptor, at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Technical University in Košice. Together with other graduates of the Department of Fine Arts and Intermedia FUTU in Košice he has founded a non-profit organization Make Up Collective and he is also the founder and active member of the London art platform Mor ho! Collective. Since 2012 he lives and works in London.
- The longer I live there00:00:12.678
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- the more I am interested in our own history.00:00:16.779
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- So, paradoxically, when I had lived in Slovakia,00:00:20.950
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- I didn't care for our national history, but since I have left I started to...00:00:25.316
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- in context of the London megapolis00:00:29.525
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- with all nations of the world living there00:00:33.853
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- I started to take keen interest in probably not just Slovak,00:00:38.166
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- but also European, Central European context00:00:42.682
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- and the theme that caught my attention was of monument.00:00:46.676
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- Therefore, I feel that we, Europeans,00:00:50.851
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- live much more in past than in future.00:00:55.013
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- The initial interventions in public space00:00:59.319
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- aimed much more00:01:03.608
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- at interfering with reality through banal, invisible even, modifications.00:01:07.879
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- Slowly, during my stay in London,00:01:15.853
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- in various artist residencies,00:01:20.018
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- I started to take interest in topics00:01:24.263
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- that didn't seem to arouse any concern for debate;00:01:28.664
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- they were as if, willingly or unwillingly, forgotten.00:01:32.842
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- In the artwork entitled 'Marble'00:01:44.833
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- I have worked with a found piece of marble00:01:49.026
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- from a former communist monument00:01:53.812
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- and using magnets I have created an unstable object,00:02:02.492
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- so the marble wants to be as if stored away,00:02:06.859
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- thought it keeps on sort of levitating in space.00:02:14.393
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- It was meant to symbolize the impossibility00:02:18.711
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- of laying aside some event, memory or era00:02:22.927
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- - communism, in this case.00:02:28.311
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- There is an artwork of great importance to me00:02:34.721
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- entitled '0 degrees', which refers to the prime meridian.00:02:39.053
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- It was kind of a guerrilla intervention into public space in Greenwich, London00:02:45.818
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- - it's message have drawn from the fact00:02:53.564
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- that the British had sort of adopted the prime meridian in 19th century,00:02:58.052
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- when they as a naval superpower had won a competition of sorts00:03:03.350
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- that had been to determine the location of the meridian.00:03:07.852
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- In my intervention I have changed the meridian.00:03:11.974
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- In the 'Surface of memory',00:03:18.618
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- created in Wool Factory in Leipzig,00:03:22.891
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- I have created a shiny surface,00:03:30.013
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- a mirror of sorts, or a puddle,00:03:34.178
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- visible only under specific light conditions and visual angle.00:03:38.489
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- I have considered this artwork to be kind of an obscure anti-monument00:03:45.946
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- to the factory, where there had been sewn00:03:49.973
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- for example Nazi uniforms,00:03:54.270
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- or the prisoners of concentration camps had been working there.00:03:58.668
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- After a few years of living there00:04:08.651
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- I came to realize a thing of great importance00:04:12.958
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- - that the Slovak culture has absolutely no representation there.00:04:17.165
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- Considering the fact that one in a hundred of Slovaks lives there00:04:21.650
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- and we nevertheless have no culture institute there00:04:25.881
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- led us and other culture-oriented Slovaks living there00:04:30.211
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- to found an open union,00:04:34.600
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- we called it Mor ho! Collective00:04:38.954
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- and we try in any way we can and without any substantial financial support by state00:04:43.169
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- to export all the first-rate stuff we Slovaks have.00:04:47.355
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- God bless and good bye!00:04:54.540