Andrew Mancuso
Artist Statement
Andrew R. Mancuso (°1987, Rochester, NY United States) is an artist who mainly works in book arts and photography. By using an ever-growing archive of found materials to create autonomous artworks, Mancuso often creates work using resurrective tactics, enabling forgotten objects and places to undergo some form of transubstantiation.
His artistic endeavors are investigations into the concepts of ephemerality and preservation. By contesting the division between the realm of culture and the realm of cultural heritage, he reflects on the closely related subjects of history and memory. This often results in an examination of the human need for ‘conclusive’ stories, the question whether anecdotes ‘fictionalize’ history, and what material culture is granted access to our collective memory.
His collected, altered, and own works are being confronted as aesthetically resilient, thematically interrelated material for memory and projection. ‘Photographs look like the truth, but they feel like memory’, Mancuso cites Allison Nordstrom. Andrew R. Mancuso currently lives and works as the Preservation Officer for the Kelvin Smith Library at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH.