The works of Stano Masár (1971), most of which are presented at this exhibition for the first time, belong to one, separate cycle. Until recently, this cycle existed only in the concepts of the author's virtual studio as a variable and flexible system, which, at the level of recording technical parameters, actually awaited its realization as a work intended for a specific space, called site-specific.
It is not by chance that this characteristic method is linked to Masár's work; because it has an architectural quality that enters the space through it - not as its guest (contrast) or member (organic part), but as a temporary intervention. Even the interior of the gallery, which limits the dimensions of the works, is a breeding ground for site-specific; the staircase of the Gallery behaves in this case in the same way as any other alternative space. The possible future, always to some extent relative, possibility of presenting Masár's objects belongs to the series of denials that the author's work announces.
The minimal form and the schematicity of the basic (furniture) morphology is the supporting link of the entire series. It is usual that such suppression of the formal aspects of the work causes a counter-movement in visual arts in favor of the universality of the content.
However, Masár, with the same vigor with which he denies the variability of forms, also ignores any content plans, and thus stands to a certain extent above the boundary points of artistic abysses - objectless universalism and fatal fixation on content; both are absolutely irreversible from an artistic point of view.
The author does not use detail, and individual objects are thus basic shape archetypes, that is, they deny themselves form as such - they only represent themselves in principle. The final polemic with use is first preceded by a denial of design variation and innovation, a denial of the search for forms, a reduction to the narrowest limit of formal logic.
After exceeding this precisely defined strategy, there is a shift towards a game with inverted rules, a game against the found object, i.e. to its manufactured and anti-functional version. Through this procedure, the objects acquire their way of life and their artistic defense. It is important that Masár introduces movement into the typological objects by attributing to them the properties of living matter capable of modifying its shape according to circumstances.
It achieves a remarkable effect: it preserves the attributes of the original thing and does not disturb their shape purity; they are even cleaner in the given disproportional metamorphosis (in one case, for example, more flat, in another, on the contrary, more spatial) and at the same time maximally dynamic. The method of this game has its own rules and limits: one limit is the closedness of the object and the thing is thus cold in relation to its surroundings, the other is the appropriation of the space in the version of a kind of imagined, previous event that took place even before our arrival - thus again coldness, but this time as ex post effect.
Basically, we are talking about different shades of deconstruction as a construction method, which in Masár's point of view functions as a new interpretation of traditional reality. Its boundaries and platform are happily given for the time being, and it is up to the author to what extent he will enrich this precise foundation, to what extent he will contain and develop it.
Richard Gregor, exhibition curator
Bratislava, 29.10.2001