Vera Molnar

Edition: French

The book "Vera Molnar, Entretien avec Vincent Baby" (Vera Molnar, Interview with Vincent Baby), published by Manuella in the AWARE (*) collection, presents a series of conversations between Vincent Baby and Vera Molnar dating back to the late 1990s. It offers a retrospective look at the artist's work, sharing anecdotes from her life and commenting on the critical reception of her work.

In this lively, funny, and theoretical interview, we discover the spirit of an artist who, at the age of sixteen, informed her mother of her big decisions: to no longer believe in God, to no longer go to church, to no longer play the piano, to paint, and to leave for France. She recounts her collaboration with her husband, François Molnar, halfway between science and art, her membership in the CRAV group (Centre de recherche d'art visuel, created in 1960) and how she began to work alone.

With irony, she defines her practice as being at the crossroads of the “3 Cs”: the Con-crets (or Con-struits), the Con-ceptuals, and the Com-puter. A pioneer of computer art, Vera Molnar used mathematical laws, an imaginary machine (a computer before the computer), and then the computer itself.

The collection is punctuated with several previously unpublished texts. In particular, she comments on some of her most striking series and provides insight into the depth of a body of work closely linked to the development of programs, allowing for experimental practice through trial and error.

(*) Vera was the winner of the Aware Prize in 2018.