March 3rd - April 9th, 2005
True Story is a model for the notion that time is a constructed history. It draws from the concept of asynchrony, which defines time as a series of variables dependent on circumstances in which the individual, community, group, or nation is found. This concept rejects the idea that time passes similarly in all places: time passes differently for a suffering individual than for one experiencing pleasure.
In the exhibition space, three lines of action (sentences) span the distance between the walls. Each word is cut from one piece of aluminium, which is connected to the other words by a steel cable. The individual lines of action are taken from a specific situation and develop into a specific sequence of events, a "history". They are installed at eye level so that they overlap as one reads the text. Therefore, the viewer can read the text either in a continuous line, or switch from one line to the next as they intersect. Through the various ways of reading True Story, the viewer is invited to experience the same moment in time at the same location from the perspectives of three different people.
The result is a hypertext, whose content always depends on the viewerŽs specific decisions and reading direction.
The exhibition will be on view from March 3rd to April 9th, 2005. A reception will be held for the artist in the gallery on March 3rd from 6 - 8 PM at 516A West 20th Street, New York City. For information call 212-741-8849.
February 7-March 6, 2004
Andrew Kreps Gallery is pleased to present "Read It" by Jan Mancuska, an artist based in Prague, Czech Republic. Mancuska's first solo-show in the US will open with a reception for the artist on Saturday, February 7th, from 6-8 PM.
A solitary room is constructed within the gallery. Through the artist's design, the walls of this room are a permeable barrier by which the space can be experienced - literally - through words. While the voids of letters illuminate the contours of a space that viewers are denied access to, Mancuska's treatment of the situation heightens our experience of the language describing our encounter. With "Read It," Mancuska activates the space between what is perceived and what is experienced.
For 800 Ways to Describe A Chair, Mancuska placed a chair against the gallery wall, and fired hundreds and hundreds of shots at it with a pellet gun. The chair is removed, leaving behind a silhouette, a ghost of itself.
Jan Mancuska's
work has been featured in exhibitions at the National Gallery, Veletrzni Palac
in Prague; in Manifesta 4 in Frankfurt, Germany; at the Neue Berliner Kunstverein
in Berlin; and in the 8th Baltic Triennial of International Art at the Center
for Contemporary Art in Vilnius, Lithuania.
