December 2007
In the beginning, in the course of things, and in the end
To recall the group MINA means to circle around the artistic climate of the last decade. MINA didn't initiate any paradigmatic shift in our understanding of art, but looking back at its activity brings us closer to the events on our artistic scene in the 1990s which today have become ever more interesting. Visiting the retrospective of the MINA group, you may realise that their work is dominated by a capricious spirit. No retrospective in 2007 can fully demonstrate the role of the MINA group in the times when the chained set of ideas of how art should be was loosening.
In the beginning: Kocman, Cunt, Ševčíková
Milan Mikuláštik and Jan Nálevka met in their first year of the Faculty of Fine Arts (FaVU) in Brno. It was 1994, and the second year of the faculty's existence. Both Nálevka and Mikuláštik came there with very traditional ideas about art. At the very beginning of their studies they met the teacher of the faculty, conceptual artist J.H. Kocman. He nurtured them, and was the first person to introduce them to the world of conceptual thinking. Both quickly absorbed the rules and, even more quickly, developed their critical response. J.H. Kocman also introduced Mikuláštik and Nálevka to the personalities of the artistic scene of Brno, like the theoretician Jiří Valoch. With the distance of more than a decade, the beginnings of FaVU are considered as the golden era of synergic cooperation among students, pedagogues and the Brno artistic scene. Mikuláštik and Nálevka are critical of this legend. They describe the atmosphere at FaVU as conservative and claim that nobody appreciated their growing interest in postconceptual thinking. Neither did it awake any interest among their peers. Kocman's care of both students beyond the usual scope of teaching was unprecedented in those conditions.1 In any case, the first exhibition of MINA did not take place in Brno, but in Prague. Their contribution to a collective exhibition What the TV Doesn't Show in the gallery U Řečických (1995) reflecting the position of the TV media, 2 was a large text stating TELEVISION IS A CUNT. In accordance with the topic of the exhibition, it laconically expressed "what the television never tells about itself" (Mikuláštik, 2007). A piquant afterpiece of their participation at What the TV Doesn't Show was a short review, Ševčíková Was Beaten Hollow, written as a school exercise. Nálevka and Mikuláštik termed their writing as "the doubtless climax" of the exhibition. However, about the concurrent exhibition of "official art" A Trial Run they stated that "it came to grief due to a young avant-garde gallery" (which we may understand to be U Řečických gallery). The atmosphere at Brno's FaVU can be illustrated by the fact that the self-ironic dimension of the pamphlet was not recognized by anyone, and their success was highly praised.
In the course of things: Coalition, irony, parody, dada
After Mikuláštik and Nálevka were introduced in Umělec magazine's "New Faces" section, the magazine also published their joint project in the section Artists Themselves.3 Although the photographic strip Coalition was not published under the name of the group, all its features are in line with its style. Nálevka and Mikuláštik let themselves be photographed playfully camping it up to the camera and to each other. They provoked with subtle hints at the possible homosexuality of the actors, and brushed the boundary between capturing an everyday situation and a stylized performance. MINA started to shape itself quite quickly. Even TELEVISION IS A CUNT already shows strategies that the group uses up to this day. How can they be summarized? In the beginning, there is always the question of the external conditions that the work of art responds to, upon which.4 MINA then takes an ironic stand. We should think about the term parody, as it best captures the way MINA approaches the period topics (identity, consumerism, militarism), artistic movements (conceptualism, ready-made or minimalist art) and the circumstances of the presentation of their work. The materials used are usually products (as opposed to a more general group of items, in the sense of mass-produced objects). The quotation of artistic forms and the ironisation of high-art topics are often realized by the low world of mass production of items and pictures. The individual works of the MINA group mirror topics relevant for the context of art in the second half of the 90s. If they are in any way specific, it is mainly their Dadaist point – fragments of persiflage stuck in the seemingly serious body of conceptual art.
In the course of things: peaks, Stonehenge, downgrade
The peaks of their mutual cooperation were doubtlessly the realisations from 1999: the Mystic Health installation, photo performance and video installation The Tradition of Verticality in Brittany, and the collection of VHS cassettes with the Hi-fi 99 audio recordings. The first two of these realisations use milk boxes as symbols of health. At first they become the "building material" of a miniature of the mysterious and miraculous Stonehenge, and later they become a paraphrase of the head-coverings from the folk costume of Breton women who reminded Mikuláštik and Nálevka of the famous local menhir rows. On the other side, Hi-fi 99 is an illustrative application of the downgrade principle – the deprivation of potency, this time in the pure, technological sense of this funny word. The VHS cassettes contain the recordings of musical compositions while the picture is limited to mere text with the names of the pieces of music. In another sense, the installation created on an otherwise serious symposium about paperwork in Předklášteří u Tišnova, with paper boats floating on a tablecloth (War, 1996) could also be viewed as a downgrade.5 And ultimately, the appeal of the slideshow Muddled Identity (2003) dwells in its refusal to perfectly cover the traces of the replacement of the authors' faces.
In the end: Legends shelved, Guma Guar, Nálevka, Funke
The groups fall apart and only then they become legendary. On the occasion of the retrospective, we should consider proclaiming the MINA group a legend. It wouldn't be easy. MINA is undead, or more likely, shelved – hibernating. MINA has never finished; the definite goodbye has not yet been heard. Nevertheless, between the pornographic installation Robert and René, the slideshow Muddled Identity (2003)6 and the Asap and Status objects (2006), three years have passed in which MINA has remained inactive. Mikuláštik turned to activism with the Guma Guar formation, and Nálevka worked individually. Ready-made for this year's Funke's Kolín festival was a peculiar comeback. It is true that it was a reductio ad absurdum of the concept of site-specific installations, but nevertheless it principally displayed the banality of a realised idea more than ever. The portraits of people with the surname Funke were taken from the Web, and the impression of awkwardness stemmed only from the clash with the traditional concept of the particular festival. Only the future will show whether this was a signal that the creative potential of the pair has been exhausted. Only then can we decide whether we should proclaim MINA a legend.
Notes:
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