Mrs. Cenko’s Children

Unintentional portrait of the Mrs. Cenko’s Children art group

Peter Meluzin, Jana Zelibska, Milan Pagac, and Viktor Oravec were the members of the Slovak art group with a peculiar name, they had chosen for themselves in the times of a Socialist Realism rule in Slovakia before the Velvet Revolution in 1989. The group name refers to the same title of a book that every school child in Slovakia during the communist regime had to read. We are in 1994 and now their name in the democratic society is not anymore a political irony and worth of ideological persecution by the authorities. However, the members of the group still keep their name. Paradoxically, their years long guru, formerly blacklisted art historian Radislav Matustik, tries deny any connection with any member of this group in the past. His dismissive mocking rant interweaves through the whole movie and connects three segments: the installation The Monolith by Peter Meluzin, the performance The Country in the Country by Jana Zelibska, and the performance Red Stone Green by Milan Pagac and Viktor Oravec. Art works are accompanied with the short explanations by the artists themselves.

The art segments of the movie were produced as a part of the One World Art and the Right to Hope series, produced by BBC and ARD television stations that promoted the collaboration between the public television broadcasters.

If you want to explore more about the same artists, watch the documentary From the Basement.