The Communists did not see pop-art, but the CIA branch. I also examine the averted face of Warhol, says the boss
Large reconstruction suffered several wounds.
The director of the Andy Warhol Museum in Medzilaborce and former chairman of Andy Warhol Martin Cubjak (44), a native of Bardejov, joined his professional life with the king of Pop-art.
He first worked in the museum in 2002-2009. He went through almost all jobs. He started out as a billers, later he was a lecturer, museoedukologist, curator assistant and curator. For some time he worked as a private gallerist. But he decided to return to Andy.
He was commissioned by the museum’s management in March 2018, after the selection procedure in June he became the director. In the original plan I should have stayed in the museum for two -three months to stabilize it, he says. He is still in the director’s post, he does not hesitate to overcome the way from Košice, where he lives with his family, to Medzilaborce back and forth.
He says he is permanently tied to Warhol and will be until death. Andy got under his skin through stories. Understanding Andy’s work means going under the surface, he emphasizes. Under his leadership, the museum is undergoing extensive reconstruction for over 15 million euros.
In the interview you read:
- As he got to Warhol,
- Why didn’t he want to look like a « pňak »,
- As Warhol got under his skin,
- Why did he go to Peru to organize your thoughts,
- why did he give up the work of a private gallerist,
- What was the return to the museum,
- How do the locals perceive the reconstruction,
- Why does Andy explore the averted face.
How did you get to Warhol?
Look for a woman for everything. I studied aesthetics and science of art at the University of Prešov. There I met my current wife Natalia, who is the daughter of Michal Byck, co -founder of the Andy Warhol Museum. At that time I liked Gothic, a renaissance.
Modern art was, paradoxically, as a young man a little distant. I scratched my head. How can Campbell’s soup be art? We asked with my classmates for beer.
Then we started walking together. I went to the museum. I knew about Warhol and Pop-art, but at school we took over the history of art from the end, we have not yet reached modern art. I had to speed up when I already had a girlfriend whose father is the founder of the museum, I didn’t want to look like a « pňak », I had to study it.
Did you get your Warhol under your skin?
Through the story. I had the opportunity to talk to Michal Byck, future mother -in -law, it was very interesting to listen to him. The paintings were up to secondary. I still try to understand the basic thing to this day: if you want to know Warhol and his personality, it is not enough to look at the surface of his paintings, because it is visually very understandable, realistic. Warhol was a conceptual artist, behind every picture there is a story. Why did he do it, in what context, with which he was splashing through the image.
The last dinner for Warhol is not only the reinterpretation of da Vinci’s image, but he dealt with him with his religion, his sexual orientation, his view of life. He was bothered. This is interesting. Warhol as a procedural work in his personality is perhaps more attractive than his images.
This was the first tension, Warhol became interested in this point of view. He became my work lover, which I could no longer leave, although I left the museum after almost seven years. I still had him ahead, I wanted to get to know him, understand, to find out to what extent his Ruthenian gene caused him to distinguish himself from other American pop-art artists, why people on the street in New York were turning what was magical.
Why did you docked in Medzilaborce?
I got married, our daughter was born. When I was a third -year -old third time, we got an offer from my wife’s family to come to live in Medzilaborce. The museum has just been released. The wife did not want to return that this is not a good place for young people. We were looking for a place in Prešov.
After all, we anchored, we thought that for a year – two, in Medzilaborce. As a college student, I sold tickets in the museum during the weekends. I told the visitors: Go up the stairs, then to the right and left, I read a lot. I was fascinated to work at the Andy Warhol museum.
I still have goose bumps when I remember how I came in the morning, nowhere, I opened exposures and looked at the paintings. These were the most beautiful moments, I told myself – how lucky I can be in contact with the world art, that I skipped all the local galleries and local artists and I am at the World Warhol. I tried to study, represent, although only by tearing tickets and later talking to people as a lecturer, at 150 percent, so that the shame is not.
Didn’t you take it too seriously?
I studied, read at night, became a mania. For some time I had a problem to depersonate, because there are other aspects of life, not just art. I was experiencing such a psychotic period when I could not get rid of the fact that I looked at all the things around me through the prism of art.
Today I have already stunned from the feeling, but then I thought art was the main. Today I know that every artist is original and unique. When I found freedom and freed myself from the feeling that art was the most important, I began to enjoy more of natural aesthetics, ordinary looking at the picture. It took me a long time.
You left the museum. For a month with a friend in the jungle in Peru, then you moved to Košice and went on the track of a private gallerist. What did you do? Did you do well?
It was a relatively complex period, I was not even thirty years, I had some gallery contacts in the world, I went to art fairs and perceived problematic bureaucracy in the museum increasingly intensively. I was somewhere inside frustrated from several things.
My friend Rasťo as a doctor was already in Peru, so we planned an adventure trip around the country to Ecuador. In a month, I organized my thoughts there and took the courage to make a more radical step. When I returned, I definitely gave a notice in the museum and went with my family to Košice, where I knew the main street and two to three people. As a private gallerist, I extended the contacts of collectors, the addresses of world fairs, for example, I got the status of the VIP guest at the Art Dubai art fair, created collections and focused on various art market analyzes.
It was another interesting period that brought me more freedom on the one hand, on the other, I had more time to perceive the pace of the development of world art with reflection and the art market. In principle, I was doing well, I expanded my ideas to linking art with technology and I was interested in generally innovation.
The authorized director of the Warhol Museum still has sealed cabinets Read
After nine years, you returned to the museum. At that time, the former director ended up in office after she got into a dispute with the co -founder and long -time curator Michal Byck for the ownership of the painting. The big chicken corso by Andy’s oldest brother Paul Byck, as his owner, took and sold from the museum. The director filed a criminal complaint against him, as the image is registered in the incremental book as the property of the museum. However, the Commission for the Creation of the Collection Fund has identified the image registration as an administrative mistake and recommended to remove it from the museum collection fund. The museum threatened international disgrace. Why did you take the museum to stabilize the difficult task?
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