Milan Cais hits rewind on a successful music career

Those who miss the atmosphere of the rattling cassette recordings, re-recordings and re-re-recordings of Frank Zappa, PJ Harvey or David Bowie need only venture as far as České Budějovice for a dose of nostalgia.

"Pod kůží" (Under the Skin), an exhibition of drawings, found-object sculptures and other mixed media by Milan Cais, revisits 1980s recording technology and more. Cais, who studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague and has already had a number of individual shows, is known primarily as the drummer of Tata bojs, a band popular for witty lyrics full of wordplay and imaginative stage designs. It is no surprise that it is Cais who stands behind those designs.

"In my case, visual art and music interconnects a lot and all the time. I cannot really separate them, and to be honest, I don't want to. It is precisely the way my life is. They just overlap daily," Cais told The Prague Post.

According to Martin Vaněk, curator of the exhibit, "Pod kůží" introduces Cais as a visual artist who is also linked to music, rather than a musician who sometimes makes art.

"Considering the Czech art scene, Cais is a distinct personality, but at the same time he is quite overlooked," he said. 

The newest pieces in the show, which includes works stretching back to 1997, are several massive cassettes Cais made out of wood in 2010. The cassettes' massive appearance contrasts with their usually small size, and are reminiscent of the Pop Art of Claes Oldenburg. One can contemplate their aesthetic function, like Duchamp's readymades, placed in the historic gallery in Wortnerův dům. Also featured in the exhibition are actual tapes Cais listened to in the 1980s.

"When I saw the vaulted space for the first time a year ago, I thought it would be impossible to install my art there," Cais said. "In the end I was surprised at how well the pieces worked, and how well it looked. The gallery is a magical space where the piece gets maximum attention, and whatever you place in there is imbued with an air of art."

Visitors to the exhibition might also notice the actual beauty of the cassettes themselves. Audio tapes are part of design history and refer to a specific age, and Cais' renditions bear the marks of collective experience as well as the artist's musical tastes. Adding another level of nostalgia, Cais made the cassettes from furniture from his teenage bedroom. When he saw the old furniture broken into pieces with personal marks such as stickers that were rare in Czechoslovakia in the 1980s, he decided to give them new life and meaning.

Other pieces in the show, including Sick Statue, provide further proof of just how inextricable Cais' connection to music is. The sculpture is a man with a large speaker instead of a head, out of which plays Radiohead's "Fitter Happier."

"I didn't really choose Radiohead; they chose me. I made a sketch while listing to "Fitter Happier" and later, when I had the lyrics translated, I realized that the sketch truly reflects the song," Cais said. "I also think it reflects the state of our society, consumer society. It is kind of nice with its gem-like details and at the same time repulsive with its big head and little ulcers." 

Twelve abstract drawings Cais calls "visual demos" are also featured in the show. Cais created them while listening to demo versions of 12 songs prepared for the next Tata bojs album.

"I see them as very interesting and autonomous pieces of art while at the end of the day the drawings do not really reflect the finalized song versions. They take down a part of creation process and inevitably also the author's emotions," Vaněk said. 

Drawing from both personal history and the intra-personal experience music fosters, "Pod kůží" proves Cais has the ability to elevate personal experience to a universal level as both a musician and a visual artist.

Filip Šenk can be reached at
fsenk@praguepost.com