Where Has Existentialism Gone? Event

Friday, 12th of January, 2024, 7 PM
Vortrag in englischer Sprache

Lecture by Oliver Gloag (author of the recently published book ‘Forget Camus’) and Vít Havránek (art historian and curator)

on the occasion of the exhibition
Ján Mančuška
Incomplete Movement

Have the testimonies of post-war existentialism been suppressed as politically threatening and philosophically restrictive and therefore faded away? Or do they emerge indirectly under the guise of current events? As individual and collective anxieties, as “hideously absurd” humor, as mechanisms of trauma healing or as the primacy of first-person experience?

Ján Mančuška (1972, Bratislava – 2011, Prague) was a post-conceptual artist who incorporated existential themes, such as illness, loneliness, suicide, rape, and memory failure, into the stories narrated by his works. This aspect holds a significant place in his oeuvre, particularly in relation to the specificity of circulation and engagement with existentialism in the late and post-socialist period. Mančuška drew inspiration from writers such as Franz Kafka, Albert Camus and Ladislav Klima.

The lecture will demonstrate and discuss the authorial and historical aspects of existentialism using examples from videos, installations, and photographs by Mančuška and other authors.

Oliver Gloag, the author of the recently published book ‘Forget Camus,’ will contribute with a commissioned video commentary addressing the relation of existencialism to activism. Gloag is an Associate Professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of North Carolina. He received his BA with honors in comparative literature from Columbia University, his J.D. from Tulane University, and his Ph.D. from Duke University. His research interests include francophone/postcolonial literature, political theory, twentieth-century French literature, and cultural history.

Vít Havránek is an art historian and curator specializing in post-war, neo-avant-garde art, contemporary art, and critical studies. He curated and co-curated numerous exhibitions, including Ján Mančuška: First Retrospective (City Gallery Prague, Muzeum Sztuki Lodz and MG v Brně, Brno, 2015), and is the editor of the monograph Ján Mančuška: First Inventory (Tranzit, Vol. 11, 2015). Since 2019, he has been Pro-Rector for International and Institutional Cooperation at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. From 2002 to 2019 he was director of tranzit.cz, part of a network of organizations active in the Central and Eastern European countries.