János Brückner: Variable Ancestry

: Published: 20 October 2018

Average Eastern-European family backgrounds have world wars, broken dreams, vis major lives, ethnic conflicts and suppressive regimes put together in various combinations. People from these regions share the same story, however many times from the opposite side – like a playground where everybody is tyrant and victim at the same time

János Brückner: Variable Ancestry
21 September – 2 November, 2018
Organized by Plusmínusnula Gallery and Everybody Needs Art
Plusmínusnula Gallery, Zilina

Leaving my original country and choosing another one to live made me see and listen to many stories of ancestry of other people. It also made me understand that my ancestry is nothing special or exotic – but it’s mine and I can tell it in my way to reinterpret, recapture and finally feel familiar with it. It was the time to turn to the family long ago behind me through emotional realism: creating a saturated and absurd, subjective and accessible, and definitely non-linear and non patriarchist interpretation of these lives before me – which partly define me and many other people like me.

I am very happy to have the opportunity to show this labyrinth of stories first in Zilina, because one thread of the stories to challenge roots back to this region: this show might offer a chance to heal the memories of a common past.
Other facts:
• 1 dungeon
• 2 castles
• 1 grandpa
• 1 grandma
• 50 photos of a soldier (10 in action, 40 in studio and group-portraits)
• 12 titles in the photo album
• 1 monographs about the city of that dungeon
• 2 postcards of the city of that dungeon
• exactly 80 years time-difference
• 3 countries
• 3 languages
• 20 photos of soldiers with cats in WW2
(maybe all grandpas, surely there is at least one grandpa amongst them)
• 6 paintings (each portrait)
• 3 short movies
• Used clothes, bed sheets, towels
• 6 co-operators
• Family, families
• Emotions

János BRÜCKNER
Graduated at the University of Fine Art Budapest in painting (2012) and at the Eötvös Lóránt University Budapest in language and literature (2011), he started studies in 2016 at the Universität der Künste Berlin at Art in Context postgraduate MA. He was research artist at the Newcastle University’s Culture Lab, Digital Media Departement, resident artist at FUTURA Contemporary Art Centre Prague (2013), studio das weisse haus, Wien (2015), MuseumsQuartier Wien (2015), Gallery Municipal, Lisboa (2016) and Accademia d’Ungheria, Roma (2017). Independent curatorial boards awarded his work by Ludwig Foundation scholarship in 2011, K&H Bank scholarship in 2012, Derkovits scholarship in 2013, 2014, 2015, and Smohay Prize 2016.

Text by János BRÜCKNER
Video: https://vimeo.com/295282458