Mara Mattuschka – My Heart’s Vibrator

She produces films every year. She stands before the camera. She directs—in recent years, together with Chris Haring. It was a blessing that she met Chris Haring, explains Mara Mattuschka. He is generous. He has an open system of working that integrates people and their respective points of view.

Haring stages his productions in bare spaces, from which Mattuschka makes films which correspond to cinematic rules of setting and dramaturgy. She extends her perspective as a painter into her cinematic approach. Up-close views of the body, from below, from above. Views which distort perspective. With digital retouching, she designs places, architectures, and spatialities. The films resulting from their collaboration are called: “Legal Errorist”, “Part Time Heroes”, and “Running Sushi”.

A fourth is to come.
She refers to her earlier cinematic work as “psychological mini-dramas”. Their contents move between the borders of tragedy and comedy. She appears in them as a performance artist. She plays Madame Ping Pong, Mimi Minus, Mahatma Gobi, and Ramses II. Their identities are somewhat loose, at play, they only become clearer in self-expression. In play, one develops a certain relaxedness towards oneself and towards problems in everyday life. This is probably what Otto Mühl was aiming at, in principle.

Mara Mattuschka makes films, plays, sings, paints. Bulgarians, she says, have a tendency to do everything. Mara Mattuschka comes from Bulgaria. She studied painting and animation with Maria Lassnig. She boasts a wide variety of artistic styles. Her work lives to the fullest, her characters are usually naked and psychologically open-hearted. Truth has many sides. She refers to herself as a post-post modernist – she likes to play, but also somehow addresses truth.
In the twenty first century, the need to experiment and break rules is over. There is a new renaissance, a return to humanity, for whom a discussion about gender roles has actually already begun. This new renaissance could be wonderful, as she hates the word “creativity”. Her work is extremely versatile, and she is so full of energy. She takes breaks between works in café houses—a truly Viennese tradition during which she takes a breather from the (Kasachok) dance of life. (wh/jn)

Interviewee: Mara Mattuschka
Artworks by: Mara Mattuschka

Copyright info: The audio and video recording has been made with personal permission of the artist.
Licensing: 0
Language(s): German, English
Subtitles: German, English
Producer: KA21 GmbH / CastYourArt
Production crew: Wolfgang Haas, Ewa Stern, Sigmund Steiner
Production country: Austria, Vienna