The Big Mirror
Karel Císař
True politicization of art does not consist in the mere illustration of political themes, for art has its own politics. “The paradox of art’s aesthetic regime rests in political arts effect being based precisely on disconnecting the aesthetic sphere – which doesn’t mean however the simple ‘autonomy’ of the artistic piece, for the disjunction of this domain of experience goes hand in hand with the loss of criteria for distinguishing what exactly is deemed art, and what can no longer be considered art. For contemporary art this is the characteristic manner in which the intermittent relationship between aesthetic disconnection and artistically indecipherable becomes the form and material of art. This means that its form of effectivity remains for the most part in the erasing of boundaries, in the redistribution of the relationship between time and space, between fiction and reality, etc.”1
The ultimate example of art politicized in this manner is Jan Mančuška’s Big Mirror installation from 2009. An extremely abstract piece, which is comprised of empty mirror wall, presents the utmost divergence from any type of illustration of political or social subject-matter. Mančuška’s work ranks itself in the tradition of formal reductive art. In it’s renouncement of depiction of any kind, the empty mirror is the subaudition of the avantgarde monochrome, which presents the logical closure of art. The monochrome, as opposed to the traditional understanding of the art work, is essentially democratic, for it rids itself of its dependence on the function of representation and opens the primary hierarchical sphere of each person’s creative activity. It must therefore stand on the border of art. It closes the sphere of art in an iconoclastic gesture by returning to a position “before” art. The empty mirror then critically examines the character of art as “no longer”art and at the same time as “not yet” art. Therefore it does not have the function of an outer limit, but rather an inner rhythm, which paraphrases the course of art history. Throughout the course of the twentieth century reductive trends initially surfaced in works from the inter-war avantgarde, they return in the work of the neo-avantgardeists of the sixties and seventies and make a reappearance in contemporary art.2
So the mirror appears to be an empty surface, at least from a purely optical view. However, in order for a mirror to be a true mirror, its surface can never be empty. It becomes a mirror at the moment when the body that is standing before it, is reflected within it. It is at that moment that it fulfills its function, which consists precisely in displaying images. The character of each and every art work, the depiction of outer reality, is always imprinted on the surface of the mirror. Similarly as in art history, formal reduction makes a comeback and ultimate depletion which corresponds to the empty mirror, the motif of mirroring as a precursor of all imaging trends repeatably appears within it, always culminates in the so-called painting of modern life, as is manifest in the rhythm of Manet’s painting A Bar at the Folies-Bergere from 1882 and Jeff Wall’s 1979 photographic image Picture for Women, from those eras, which precede and follow iconoclastic gestures employing empty mirrors.3
Mančuška’s work draws on both of these sources. Jan Mančuška gradually parted ways with depiction in his purely textual works, in order to return to them now in what are for the time being his latest film and video realizations. However, tradition resounds most strongly in his work, an aspect which in itself joins these two sources. Those traditions are performative tendencies, which best personify Dan Graham’s piece from 1979, Performer, Audience, Mirror.4 In this performance Graham, positioned in front of the seated audience, at first describes his behavior and the audience’s behavior. He then turns to the mirrored wall behind him and once again describes his behavior and the public’s reaction, this time however, as he sees them reflected in the mirror. The time delay, which opens between the image and its linguistic characterization, was key for the artist. The system of reflection in this event is multiplied many times over. The audience initially reacts to the artist’s behavior and his account. The subject of the linguistic reflection ensuingly becomes their reaction itself. When Graham turned his back to the public towards the mirror, the description of his behavior was already conveyed twice – once reflected in the mirror and a second time through his description. What’s more, in this situation Graham becomes a part of the audience, for he himself is framed in the mirrored image. In the artist’s words this visual reflection was transformed during the event into mental reflection, which, what’s more was shared with the public not as a body of individuals, but as a many-headed collective. The mirror is, according to Dan Graham, the embodiment of consciousness, which is, in and of itself, completely empty, for it is filled exclusively with subjects of thought, which differ from itself.
It is similar in the case of Mančuška’s work as well, which radicalizes the entire situation in that it creates a mere stage for the viewers, without binding them to a scenario, and in so approximates a different mirror piece by Graham, Public Space/Two Audiences from 1976. Viewers who approach Mančuška’s work are initially effected by its asymmetry, which in the otherwise symmetrical building, is achieved through the positioning of the mirrors. It fills a facing wall of one of the opposing wings of the building’s first floor in its entirety. If we situate ourselves at the center of the gallery our gaze off to the right ends after a time, while our gaze to the left falls into the infinite depth of the virtual space beyond the mirror’s surface. In this way, the placed optical element alters the distribution of space inside the gallery. In Mančuška’s piece the exhibitory institution, which is traditionally understood as the bulwark of visibility, itself becomes the subject of observation.5 In the second phase approaching the mirrored wall carries the experience of self-identification. Initially, we don’t turn our backs to the mirror as we would to an imaged surface but we automatically make eye contact with our own image. In the third phase we are capable of observing ourselves as an other – namely as our own mirrored image. It isn’t until the fourth phase when we can disregard the mirror’s surface, in which we are included as a part of the others. At this point we become conscious of ourselves as a mere component of the optical system, in which we are not mere observers, but simultaneously observed as well, and we begin to construct ourselves as an image designated for the other.
The experience of the immediate dynamic of gazing into Mančuška’s Big Mirror, in which we pass from selfidentification to alienation and back again, precisely reflects the metamorphosis of how all art is perceived. It was long understood as a neutral representation of the exterior world, and was only recently newly understood as a tool of power, which, in that it enables seeing it simultaneously prescribes the viewer’s location and place.6 And it is precisely at this vantage point that its true politics lie. The surface of the mirror does not present the autonomous aesthetic sphere, however as an optical machine, it remains disconnected from the surrounding world. At the same time, however, the mirror cannot be easily identified as a work of art, for it is a thing among other things. The viewer confronted with the mirror is placed into a situation in which they can experiment with their relationship to the world as well as towards other people. Mančuška’s work in Czech art therefore belongs to those avantgarde and neo-avant-garde traditions which wanted democracy “here and now”, not the one that is about to come along.7 “Democracy appears to us as an unattainable future, as long as we understand it as a perfect state form or as a faultless state of equality. This does not correspond to my conception at all. For me that ‘not yet’ cannot be separated from ‘already here and now’. Democracy exists merely by means of my own deeds and by means of the thread of common life, that these deeds spin. It isn’t ‘in principle unrealizable’. It is a principle, which we have already recognized entwined with its contradiction and asserting itself in the struggle against it. The horizon of equality is not something, we should march after led by the vision of unattainable perfection, but by that which prepares the scenario enabling our thought and behavior.” 8
1 Christian Holler, Jacques Ranciere, Entsorgung der Demokratie, Interview mit Jacques Ranciere, Springerin 3/2007.
2 See Benjamin Buchloh, The Primary Colors for the Second Time: A Paradigm Repetition of the Neo-Avant-Garde, October, Vol. 37, 1986, p. 41–52.
3 See Michael Fried, Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before, Yale University Press, London and New Haven, 2008.
4 See Dan Graham, Interview from the Early Show: Video from 1969 to 1979 and Chrissie Iles, You Are the Information: Dan Graham and Performance in: Benner Simpson, Chrissie Iles, (eds.), Dan Graham: Beyond, MIT Press, 2009, p. 55–70 and 57–63.
5 From this perspective Dominik Lang installation Large Glass from the exhibition Memories of the Future at Vaclav Špala Gallery is related to Mančuška’s work. Two identical rooms in the basement gallery were seperated by a glass pane in such a manner as to impede the viewer from entering the second room and without further intervention to the other room transformed the gallery into an unobtainable exhibit.
6 See Craig Owens, Representation, Appropriation and Power, in: ibid, Beyond Recognition. Representation, Power, and Culture, University of California Press, 1992, p. 88–113.
7 See Karel Srp, Navody Jiřiho Kolaře, in: Vit Havranek, (ed.), Akce, slovo, pohyb, prostor, Galerie hlavniho města Prahy, 1999: “Kolař went so far as to exhibit a mirror at the Depatesie exhibition, in so making an parallel step to those who realised the Bazaar of Modern Art (1923), of course with the difference of not adding a description beneath reading‚ ‚Your portrait, dear viewer‘, but he apparently supplied a similar sort of “rollaged” object: There was a broken mirror there as well, where one could see their own image intersecting with flat dark empty surfaces,‘ Chalupecky reminisced.”
8 Christian Holler, Jacques Ranciere, p. 151.