Manifesta
Encyclopedia
Manifesta, the European Biennial of Contemporary Art, is a European pan-regional contemporary cultural biennale, described in 2010 by the Wall Street Journal as "stunning in its scope and uncompromisingly experimental in its approach".
initiative to create a pan-Europe
an platform for the contemporary visual arts
. Unlike most biennials, Manifesta is held in a different location each time it is held, and the concept of an itinerant event first took shape in Rotterdam
in 1996, in consultation with a specially appointed International Advisory Board (the forerunner of the present International Foundation), and the support of various national governmental arts organisations and ministries of culture in Europe. The main office of the International Foundation Manifesta, initator of the various editions of the Manifesta Biennial is located in Amsterdam
, Netherlands
.
Manifesta developed into a fast growing network for young professionals in Europe and one of the most innovative biennial exhibition programme to be held anywhere. This is due, in no small measure, to its pan-European ambitions and its uniquely nomadic nature. Both the network and the exhibition, with its related activities, are equally important components of this itinerant event. Manifesta offers a platform for emerging artists, on the basis of a networking organisation, which is able to respond flexibly to new artistic, technological and cultural developments. The most obvious aspects of Manifesta's inbuilt flexibility is the fact that a new, pan-European theme or concept is developed on each occasion by a team of outside curators, working in close consultation with representatives of all kind of cultural, social, academic institutions in the host city. In other words, each new edition aims to establish a close dialogue between a specific cultural and artistic situation and the broader context of European visual contemporary art.
Manifesta 1 was held in Rotterdam, Netherlands in 1996 in 16 different museums and 36 public spaces. A team of five curators, from Barcelona
, Budapest
, London
, Moscow
, and Paris
/Zurich
, selected 72 artists from 30 different European countries and five from elsewhere. Since then it has been held in Luxembourg
(1998), Ljubljana
(2000), Frankfurt
(2002) and San Sebastian
(Spain) in 2004. The event was due to be held in the ethnically-divided city of Nicosia
, Cyprus, in 2006 but was cancelled at the last moment. In 2008 Manifesta 7 took place in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, Italy. Manifesta 8 took place in the region of Murcia Spain in 2010. Manifesta 9 will take place in 2012 in the region of Limburg, Belgium.
The Manifesta biennials and organisation have not operated without controversy. The most notable problem was in 2006 when the event was cancelled in Cyprus. A number of critics of the planned Cyprus event claimed Manifesta was too concerned with gaining sponsorship from big business and government, and not enough with the needs of artists, particularly those in the host country.
Manifesta 1, Rotterdam
Manifesta 1 was developed by Hedwig Fijen and Jolie van Leeuwen as the first edition of the Manifesta Biennal.
Curated by Andrew Renton, Katalyn Neray, Rosa Martinez
, Viktor Misiano and Hans Ulrich Obrist
, it was held in 16 different museums
and 36 public spaces in Rotterdam
, Netherlands
. All the works displayed at Manifesta 1 were specially made for this event and many of the participating artists where exhibiting outside their own countries for the first time in their career. Many of these artists went on to exhibit extensively in public and commercial galleries in Europe and the US, and to take part in major international events, such as the Venice Biennale
and the documenta
. A novel aspect of this exhibition – taken on by subsequent editions of Manifesta – was the emphasis given to collaborative work between artists, curators, representatives of different disciplines and the general public. In the months prior to the opening, the curatorial team
responsible for realizing the exhibition held a series of so called ‘open’ and ‘closed house’ meetings in a dozen different cities all over Europe, in which professionals and members of the general public were invited to participate.
(Austria / USA) • Mila Bredikhina (Russia) • Patrick Van Caeckenbergh
(Belgium) • Entertainment & Co • (Portugal) • Mat Collishaw
(Great Britain) • Maurice O'Connell
(Ireland) • Rogelio López Cuenca (Spain) • Maria Eichhorn (Germany) • Olafur Eliasson
(Island) • Ayse Erkmen (Turkey) • Vadim Fishkin (Russia) • Bernhard Fuchs (Switzerland) • Tamara Grcic (Germany) • Joseph Grigely (USA) • Douglas Gordon
(Scotland) • Tommi Grönlund (Finland) • Marie-Ange Guilleminot (France) • Dmitri Gutov (Russia) • Jitka Hanzlová (Germany) • Róza El-Hassan (Hungary) • Carl Michael von Hausswolff
(Sweden) • Christine Hill (Germany) • Carsten Höller
(Germany) • Fabrice Hybert
(France) • IRWIN
(Slovenia) • Siraj Izhar (Great Britain) • Henrik Plenge Jacobsen (Denmark) • Robert Jankuloski (Macedonia) • Piotr Jaros (Poland) • Koo Jeong-a (France) • Ivana Keser (Croatia) • Soo-Ja Kim (South-Korea) • Suchan Kinoshita (Netherlands) • Oleg Kulik
(Russia) • Renée Kool (Netherlands) • Pavel Kopriva (Czech Republic) • Yuri Leiderman (Russia) • Tracy Mackenna (Scotland) • Esko Männikkö (Finland) • Eva Marisaldi (Italy) • Jenny Marketou (Greece) • Roger Meintjes (Portugal) • Regina Möller (Germany) • NEsTWORK (Netherlands) • Petteri Nisunen (Finland) • Roman Ondák (Slovakia) • Huang Yong Ping
(France) • Valeri Podoroga (Russia) • Tadej Pogacar (Slovenia) • Mathias Poledna (Austria) • Liza May Post (Netherlands) • Luca Quartana (Italy) • Tobias Rehberger (Germany) • Gerwald Rockenschaub (Austria) • Arsen Savadov
(Ukraine) • Pit Schulz (Germany) • Georgy Senchenko (Ukraine) • subREAL (Rumania) • Nedko Solakov (Bulgaria) • János Sugár (Hungary) • Kathy Temin (Australia) • Hale Tenger (Turkey) • Jaan Toomik
(Estonia) • Rirkrit Tiravanija
(USA) • Didier Trenet (France) • Rosemarie Trockel
(Germany) • Mette Tronvoll (Scandinavia) • Uri Tzaig
(Israel) • Paco Vacas (Spain) • Eulàlia Valldosera (Spain) • Lydia Venieri
(Greece) • Susann Walder (Switzerland) • Sam Taylor-Wood
(Great Britain) • Catherine Yass
(Great Britain)
Manifesta 2, Luxembourg
Manifesta 2 was held under the patronage of the Ministry of Culture of Luxembourg, curated by Robert Fleck, Maria
Lind and Barbara Vanderlinden, and included mostly site-specific work. For the first time, Manifesta included a series
of international discussions and debates and launched a cumulative ‘Info lab’ (the basis of Manifesta’s present growing archive), with up-to-date printed and audiovisual material about current artistic tendencies in 30 different European countries. Another innovative feature of Manifesta 2, which has been further developed for Manifesta 3 and 4, was the involvement of 30 young people from all over Europe in a training programme specially devised for Manifesta 2 with organisational and educational purposes. More than 43 European countries participated financially and organisationally in Manifesta 2, contributing, for example, to the curators’ and artists’ travel costs and other expenses related to transport and additional activities. The exhibition catalogue contained information about the infrastructure for contemporary visual art in approximately 30 European countries.
(Finland) • Kutlug Ataman
(Turkey) • Orla Barry (Great Britain) • Emese Benczúr (Hungary) • Christine Borland
(Scotland) • Eriks Bozis (Latvia) • Maurizio Cattelan
(Italy) • Alicia Framis (Netherlands) • Dora Garcia (Netherlands / Belgium) • Dr. Galentin Gatev (Bulgaria) • Dominique Gonzales-Foerster (France) • Felix Gonzales-Torres (USA) • Carsten Höller
(Germany) • Pierre Huyghe
(France) • Sanja Iveković
(Croatia) • Inessa Josing (Estonia) • Kristof Kintera (Czech Republic) • Elke Krystufek
(Austria) • Peter Land
(Denmark) • Maria Lindberg (Sweden) • Michel Majerus
(Germany) • Bjarne Melgaard
(Norway / Australia) • Deimantas Narkevicius (Lithuania) • Fanni Niemi-Junkola (Finland) • Honoré ’O (Belgium) • Boris Ondreicka (Slovakia) • Tanja Ostojic
(Jugoslavia) • Marko Peljhan (Slovenia) • Dan Perjovschi
(Rumania) • Franz Pomassl
(Austria) • Antoine Prum (Luxembourg) • Tobias Rehberger (Germany) • Jeroen de Rijke / Willem de Rooij
(Netherlands) • Bojan Sarcevic
(France) • Eran Schaerf (Germany / Belgium) • Tilo Schulz (Germany) • Nebojsa Soba Seric (Bosnia) • Ann-Sofi Sidén
(USA / Sweden) • Andreas Slominski (Germany) • Sean Snyder
(Germany) • Apolonija Sustersic (Slovenia / Netherlands) • Sarah Sze
(USA) • Bert Theis (Italy) • Piotr Uklánski • Gitte Villesen (Denmark) • Richard Wright
(Scotland)
Manifesta 3, Ljubljana
For Manifesta 3 the work by artists, artists’ collectives, urban planners and architects was spread over three main venues. For the first time, Manifesta received press coverage in the United States of America, but no less important was the high proportion of visitors from neighbouring countries in East and South-East Europe. Another brand new initiative was to give the exhibition a theme, which the curatorial team (Francesco Bonami, Ole Bouman, Maria
Hlavajova and Kathrin Rhomberg) named Border
line Syndrome. Energies of Defence. In order to support the subject
they were exploring they also solicited catalogue contributions not only from a wide range of Slovenian and foreign intellectuals (philosophers, historians and sociologists among others), but also from the general public. The catalogue has turned today into a collector’s item. The nature of the events in Ljubljana reflected the thriving intellectual life of the city and the relevance of interdisciplinary practice in the arts – particularly, the crossover between visual art, cinema and performance, and interaction with new media.
(France) • Pawel Althamer
(Poland) • Rasmus Knud & Søren Andreasen (Denmark) • Maja Bajevic (Bosnia) • Simone Berti
(Italy) • Ursula Biemann (Switzerland) • Roland Boden
(Germany) • Agnese Bule (Lithuania) • Nayia Frangouli & Yane Calovski (Great Britain / USA) • Phil Collins
(Northern Ireland) • Joost Conijn (Netherlands) • Josef Dabernig (Austria) • Colin Darke (Northern Ireland) • Michael Elmgreen
& Ingar Dragset
(Denmark) • FAT: S. Griffiths • C. Holland • S. Jacob (Great Britain) • Urs Fischer
(Great Britain / Switzerland) • Marcus Geiger (Austria) • Amit Goren (Israel) • Veli Granö (Finland) • Pravdoliub Ivanov (Bulgaria) • Ivana Jelavic (Croatia) • Daniel Jewesbury (Northern Ireland) • Selja Kameric (Bosnia) • Ian Kiaer
(Great Britain) • Koo Jeong-a (France) • Edward Krasinski (Poland) • Darij Kreuh (Slovenia) • Denisa Lehocká (Slovakia) • Alexander Melkonyan (Armenia) • Matthias Müller (Germany) • Paul Noble
(Great Britain) • Anton Olshvang (Russia) • Roman Ondák (Slovakia) • Anatoly Osmolovsky (Russia) • Adrian Paci (Albania / Italy) • Manfred Pernice (Germany) • Diego Perrone
(Italy) • Susan Philipsz
(Northern Ireland) • Marjetica Potrc
(Slovenia) • Arturas Raila (Lithuania) • Anri Sala
(Albania / France) • Bülent Sangar (Turkey) • Sanna Sarva (Finland) • Tomo Savic-Gecan (Netherlands / Croatia) • Schie 2.0: J.Konings • T.Matton • L.Verweij (Netherlands) • Ene-Liis Semper (Estonia) • Stalker
(Italy) • Simon J. Starling (Scotland) • Skart:D. Prostic • M.Postic • T.Moraca • P. de Bruyne • D. Balmazovic (Jugoslavia) • Nika Span (Slovenia / Germany) • Nasrin Tabatabai (Netherlands) • Sarah Tripp (Scotland) • Francisco Tropa (Portugal) • Joëlle Tuerlinckx (Belgium) • Sisley Xhafa (Italy) • Gregor Zivic (Austria) • Jasmila Zbanic
(Bosnia)
Manifesta 4, Frankfurt
Manifesta 4 took place in more than 15 venues and urban sites in the city of Frankfurt/Main and more than a dozen theoreticians played a major role in site-related workshops, discussions and programmes. The three female curators Iara Boubnova, Nuria Enguita Mayo and Stephanie Moisdon Trembley created an extensive digital and physical Manifesta archive that resulted from their extensive travel, a library called ‘Trespassing Space’ and a Manifesta online project called e-manifesta.org. On this occasion, Manifesta 4 incorporated the support of more than 16 sponsors and non-profit organisations, as well as the direct support through artist’s projects by more than 40 national arts organisations.
(Turkey) • Daniel García Andújar
(Spain) • Apsolutno (Yugoslavia) • Ibon Aranberri (Spain) • Olivier Bardin (France) • Yael Bartana
(Israel) • Massimo Bartolini (Italy) •Marc Bijl
(Netherlands) • Pierre Bismuth
(France) • Bleda y Rosa (Spain) • Elisabetta Benassi (Italy)• BLESS
• Lionel Bovier • Luchezar Boyadjiev (Bulgaria) • Fernando Bryce (Peru) • Gerard Byrne
(Ireland) • Roberto Cuoghi (Italy) • Jonas Dahlberg (Sweden) • Kathy Deepwell • Dagmar Demming • Branislav Dimitrijevic • Esra Ersen • Jon Mikel Euba (Spain) • Jeanne Faust (Germany) • João Fernandes
• Zlatan Filipovic (Sarajevo, Bosnia and Hercegovina) • Finger
(Berlin) • Christoph Fink (Belgium) • Nina Fischer & Maroan El Sani (Germany/Germany) • Dirk Fleischmann (Germany) •Andreas Fogarasi (Austria) • Luke Fowler
(Great Britain) • Andrea Geyer (Germany) • Alonso Gil • Gudmundsdottir (Iceland) • Alban Hajdinaj (Albania) • Lise Harlev (Denmark) • Institut für Kulturanthropologie und Europäische Ethnologie (Germany) • Jens Hoffmann
(in collaboration with Natascha Sadr Haghighian
& Tino Sehgal
) • Takehito Koganezawa (Japan) • Erden Kosova • Andreja Kuluncic
(Yugoslavia) • Antal Lakner (Hungary) • Franck Larcade • Anton Litvin (Russia) • Gintaras Makarevicius • Ján Mancuska (Slovakia) • Mathieu Mercier (France) • Suzana Milevska • Gianni Motti (Italy) • Ivan Moudov • Oliver Musovik (Macedonia) • Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani (Germany/Germany) • Olivier Nottellet • OHIO Photomagazine • Maria Papadimitriou (Greece) • Florian Pumhösl (Austria) • Tobias Putrih (Slovenia) • Radek Group • Sal Randolph
(USA) • Revolver Archiv für aktuelle Kunst (Germany) • Gianni Romano • ROR Revolutions on Request (Finland) • rraum-rraum02-ideoblast (Germany) • Pia Rönicke (Denmark) Natascha Sadr Haghighian
• Hedwig Saxenhuber • Hans Schabus (Austria) • Tino Seghal • Kalin Serapionov (Bulgaria) • Bruno Serralongue (France) • Erzen Shkololli • Sancho Silva (Portugal) • Monika Sosnowska
(Poland) • Laura Stasíulytë (Lithuania) • Mika Taanila
(Finland) • The Construction & Deconstruction Institute (Netherlands) • Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas (Lithuania) • Jasper van den Brink (Netherlands) • Edin Vejselovic Edo (Macedonia) •wemgehoertdiestadt • Måns Wrange (Sweden) • Haegue Yang
(Korea)• Jun Yang (China) • Zapp
(Netherlands) • Artur Żmijewski
Manifesta 5, Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain
The Basque region
– one of a specific dynamic historical and socio-political background – has a strong sense of
cultural and political identity and a determination to develop coherent cultural policies. This attitude together with its geographical position in Southern Europe made Donostia-San Sebastian a perfect location for the 5th edition of Manifesta, as curated by Massimiliano Gioni and Marta Kuzma. At the time of M5, one of Manifesta's long-term strategic aims was to achieve a stronger North-South balance, in addition to the already existing East-West balance in
all aspects of its activities, including location, board members, curatorial teams and artistic representation. One particularly innovative program within the Biennale was Manifesta 5’s long-lasting partnership with the post-graduate
Berlage Institute Rotterdam in the Netherlands, functioning as an urban mediator at the biennale and as a collaboration between architects and artists, exploring how contemporary art practices is extending in the reality of architecture and urban planning.TOOAUP
(Netherlands) • Victor Alimpiev and Sergey Vishnevsky (Russia) • Huseyin Alptekin (Turkey) Micol Assaël (Italy) • Sven Augustijnen (Belgium) • Zbynûk Baladrán (Czech Republic) • John Bock
(Germany) • Michaël Borremans
(Belgium) • Sergey Bratkov (Russia) Carlos Bunga (Portugal) • Duncan Campbell (Great Britain) • Cengis Çekil (Turkey) • Illya Chichkan
and Kyrill Protsenko (Ukraine) • D.A.E. (Peio Aguirre and Leire Vergara) • Jan de Cock
(Belgium) • Angela de la Cruz
(Spain) • Jeremy Deller
(Great Britain) • Andrea Faciu
(Romania) • Iñaki Garmendia (Spain) • Geert Goiris (Belgium) • Kim Hiorthøy
(Norway) • Laura Horelli (Finland) • Külli Kaats (Estonia) • Johannes Kahrs
(Germany) • Leopold Kessler
(Austria) • Mark Leckey
(Great Britain) • Maria Lusitano (Portugal) • Mark Manders
(Netherlands) • Asier Mendizabal (Spain) • Boris Mikhailov
(Ukraine) • Oksana Pasaiko • Anu Pennanen (Finland) • Garrett Phelan (Ireland) • Kirsten Pieroth
(Germany) • Paola Pivi
(Italy) • Office of Alternative Urban Planning (Verónica Arcos, José Arnaud, Sannah Belzer, Sebastián Khourian, Claudia Strahl, Mónica Villate, Constanze Zehi) • Marc Quer (France) • Daniel Roth
(Germany) • Michael Sailstorfer (Austria) • Silke Schatz
(Germany) • Markus Schinwald (Austria) • Conrad Shawcross
(Great Britain) • Eyal Sivan
and Michel Khleifi
(Israel/ Palestine) • Hito Steyerl
(Germany) • Misha Stroj (Slovenia) • Patrick Tuttofuoco (Italy) • Vangelis Vlahos (Greece) • Gillian Wearing
(Great Britain) • Amelie von Wulffen (Germany) • Cathy Wilkes
(Scotland) • Yevgeniy Yufit (Russia) • Olivier Zabat (France) • David Zink Yi
(Peru) • Darius Ziura (Lithuania)
Manifesta 6, Nicosia
As their project for Manifesta 6, the curatorial team of Mai Abu ElDahab, Anton Vidokle
and Florian Waldvogel intended to use the capital, network and infrastructure of Manifesta
along with the local resources to start an experimental art school
. The school, bi-communal and international in composition, was to be formed in Nicosia
around a site-specific exhibition materialized through short and long-term residency programs resulting in a production of a number of new works and events in Cyprus
, and might have gone on to become a permanent institution. Manifesta 6 was canceled three months before the opening. Afterward, Vidokle and some of his Manifesta collaborators organized a similar independent project called unitednationsplaza.
Manifesta 7, Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, Italy
In 2008, for the first time Manifesta took place not in a city but in a whole region: Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, Italy
. The area has been selected for its historical heritage, its artistic and cultural facilities and especially for its striking examples of industrial archaeology buildings, which are linked to the work history and the progressive industrialisation of the territory.
Manifesta 7 formally came to an end on November 2, 2008 after a period of 111 days of intense activity. Manifesta 7 was curated as a collaborative effort by three teams, consisting of Adam Budak, Anselm Franke/Hila Peleg and Raqs Media Collective
, and was organised by a large international team, which was managed by Hedwig Fijen, Andreas Hapkemeyer and Fabio Cavallucci. Manifesta 7 attracted more than 108,000 visitors.
The positive response to Manifesta 7 has been confirmed by the presence of numerous, different audience groups, as well as the widespread coverage in the local, national and international press. Art critics have described this edition as the best Manifesta so far. 1,615 journalists from Italy and abroad registered to visit the Manifesta 7 exhibitions. These events showcased painting, sculpture, video, installation and sound works, the majority of which were specially conceived for the occasion by 230 participating artists, architects and writers from around the world.
please refer to the Manifesta 7 Artist page.
Manifesta 8, Murcia
On January 9, 2011, Manifesta 8 – the European Biennial of Contemporary Art, came to a close after 100 days in the host cities of Murcia and Cartagena in southeast Spain. Manifesta 8 took place in 14 venues, five of which were historical buildings specially refurbished for Manifesta, plus four media spaces. Manifesta 8 was curated by three independent curatorial collectives, each of them developing a project as an autonomous curatorial contribution. The collectives are ACAF – Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum, CPS – Chamber of Public Secrets and tranzit.org. The positive results achieved by Manifesta 8 in the Region of Murcia have been attested by 110,000 visitors, who have been welcomed at the 14 venues during the exhibition period. Furthermore over 10% of the total visitors to Manifesta 8 participated to one of the many education, outreach and art mediation programs on offer.
For the first time, the Biennial integrated a sub-theme in its title – a dialogue with northern Africa as a direct consequence of geopolitical issues in the region where it took place. In different interdisciplinary projects, this theme was sometimes explicit, sometimes inferred and sometimes highlighted in historical films, photographs and aligned works by artists from Africa, with particular emphasis on the history of Arabic culture rooted in the Region of Murcia. Manifesta 8 incorporated a large number of Parallel Events spread throughout the region of Murcia, as well as television and radio programs, publications, Internet sites and multi-media projects.
Manifesta 8 reached record attendance of over 50,000 visitors within its first month after opening on the 9th October, and has been described as "monstrous in size, stunning in its scope and uncompromisingly experimental in its approach" by the Wall Street Journal.
AA The ART ASSEMBLY,
Abed Anouti,
AGM 10 Annual General Meeting,
Basma AlSharif,
Esref Armagan,
Mounira Al Solh,
Babi Badalov,
Backbench,
Brumaria,
Erick Beltran,
Gonzalo Ballester,
Igor & Ivan Buharov,
Lene Berg,
Michael Paul Britto,
Neil Beloufa,
Pablo Bronstein,
Banu Cennetoglu / Shiri Zinn,
Boris Charmatz,
Celine Condorelli,
Common Culture,
Manifesta History
Manifesta began as a DutchNetherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
initiative to create a pan-Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an platform for the contemporary visual arts
Visual arts
The visual arts are art forms that create works which are primarily visual in nature, such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, and often modern visual arts and architecture...
. Unlike most biennials, Manifesta is held in a different location each time it is held, and the concept of an itinerant event first took shape in Rotterdam
Rotterdam
Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...
in 1996, in consultation with a specially appointed International Advisory Board (the forerunner of the present International Foundation), and the support of various national governmental arts organisations and ministries of culture in Europe. The main office of the International Foundation Manifesta, initator of the various editions of the Manifesta Biennial is located in Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
, Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
.
Manifesta developed into a fast growing network for young professionals in Europe and one of the most innovative biennial exhibition programme to be held anywhere. This is due, in no small measure, to its pan-European ambitions and its uniquely nomadic nature. Both the network and the exhibition, with its related activities, are equally important components of this itinerant event. Manifesta offers a platform for emerging artists, on the basis of a networking organisation, which is able to respond flexibly to new artistic, technological and cultural developments. The most obvious aspects of Manifesta's inbuilt flexibility is the fact that a new, pan-European theme or concept is developed on each occasion by a team of outside curators, working in close consultation with representatives of all kind of cultural, social, academic institutions in the host city. In other words, each new edition aims to establish a close dialogue between a specific cultural and artistic situation and the broader context of European visual contemporary art.
Manifesta 1 was held in Rotterdam, Netherlands in 1996 in 16 different museums and 36 public spaces. A team of five curators, from Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
, Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, and Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
/Zurich
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
, selected 72 artists from 30 different European countries and five from elsewhere. Since then it has been held in Luxembourg
Luxembourg
Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland in the south...
(1998), Ljubljana
Ljubljana
Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia and its largest city. It is the centre of the City Municipality of Ljubljana. It is located in the centre of the country in the Ljubljana Basin, and is a mid-sized city of some 270,000 inhabitants...
(2000), Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
(2002) and San Sebastian
San Sebastián
Donostia-San Sebastián is a city and municipality located in the north of Spain, in the coast of the Bay of Biscay and 20 km away from the French border. The city is the capital of Gipuzkoa, in the autonomous community of the Basque Country. The municipality’s population is 186,122 , and its...
(Spain) in 2004. The event was due to be held in the ethnically-divided city of Nicosia
Nicosia
Nicosia from , known locally as Lefkosia , is the capital and largest city in Cyprus, as well as its main business center. Nicosia is the only divided capital in the world, with the southern and the northern portions divided by a Green Line...
, Cyprus, in 2006 but was cancelled at the last moment. In 2008 Manifesta 7 took place in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, Italy. Manifesta 8 took place in the region of Murcia Spain in 2010. Manifesta 9 will take place in 2012 in the region of Limburg, Belgium.
The Manifesta biennials and organisation have not operated without controversy. The most notable problem was in 2006 when the event was cancelled in Cyprus. A number of critics of the planned Cyprus event claimed Manifesta was too concerned with gaining sponsorship from big business and government, and not enough with the needs of artists, particularly those in the host country.
Manifesta 1, RotterdamRotterdamRotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...
, NetherlandsNetherlandsThe Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, 1996
Manifesta 1 was developed by Hedwig Fijen and Jolie van Leeuwen as the first edition of the Manifesta Biennal.Curated by Andrew Renton, Katalyn Neray, Rosa Martinez
Rosa Martinez
Rosa Martínez is an independent curator, art critic and international art advisor based in Barcelona, Spain. Currently she is co-curator of "TRA.Edge of Becoming" for Axel Vervoordt Foundation and Palazzo Fortuny Museum http://www.tra-expo.comAs an independent curator, Rosa Martínez has...
, Viktor Misiano and Hans Ulrich Obrist
Hans Ulrich Obrist
Hans Ulrich Obrist is a contemporary art curator, critic and historian of art. He is currently Co-director of Exhibitions and Programmes and Director of International Projects at the Serpentine Gallery, London...
, it was held in 16 different museums
and 36 public spaces in Rotterdam
Rotterdam
Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...
, Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
. All the works displayed at Manifesta 1 were specially made for this event and many of the participating artists where exhibiting outside their own countries for the first time in their career. Many of these artists went on to exhibit extensively in public and commercial galleries in Europe and the US, and to take part in major international events, such as the Venice Biennale
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...
and the documenta
Documenta
documenta is an exhibition of modern and contemporary art which takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany. It was founded by artist, teacher and curator Arnold Bode in 1955 as part of the Bundesgartenschau which took place in Kassel at that time...
. A novel aspect of this exhibition – taken on by subsequent editions of Manifesta – was the emphasis given to collaborative work between artists, curators, representatives of different disciplines and the general public. In the months prior to the opening, the curatorial team
responsible for realizing the exhibition held a series of so called ‘open’ and ‘closed house’ meetings in a dozen different cities all over Europe, in which professionals and members of the general public were invited to participate.
Overview Artists Manifesta 1
• Martin BeckMartin Beck
Martin Beck is a fictional Swedish police detective who is the main character in a series of ten novels by Sjöwall and Wahlöö, collectively titled The Story of a Crime...
(Austria / USA) • Mila Bredikhina (Russia) • Patrick Van Caeckenbergh
Patrick Van Caeckenbergh
Patrick Van Caeckenbergh is a Belgian artist. Born in Aalst, East Flanders, he now lives and works in Sint-Kornelis-Horebeke, Belgium....
(Belgium) • Entertainment & Co • (Portugal) • Mat Collishaw
Mat Collishaw
Matthew "Mat" Collishaw is an artist based in London, and one of the Young British Artists.-Career:Collishaw attended Goldsmiths, University of London , alongside Damien Hirst and other YBA artists....
(Great Britain) • Maurice O'Connell
Maurice O'Connell
Maurice O'Connell was one of seven children of the Irish Nationalist leader Daniel and Mary O'Connell. He served in British Parliament as Member of Parliament for Tralee from 1832 to 1837, and from 1838 until his death.His brothers John, Morgan and Daniel were also MPs.-External links:* -Sources :...
(Ireland) • Rogelio López Cuenca (Spain) • Maria Eichhorn (Germany) • Olafur Eliasson
Olafur Eliasson
Olafur Eliasson is a Danish-Icelandic artist known for sculptures and large-scale installation art employing elemental materials such as light, water, and air temperature to enhance the viewer’s experience. In 1995 he established Studio Olafur Eliasson in Berlin, a laboratory for spatial research...
(Island) • Ayse Erkmen (Turkey) • Vadim Fishkin (Russia) • Bernhard Fuchs (Switzerland) • Tamara Grcic (Germany) • Joseph Grigely (USA) • Douglas Gordon
Douglas Gordon
Douglas Gordon is a Scottish artist; he won the Turner Prize in 1996 and the following year he represented Britain at the Venice Biennale...
(Scotland) • Tommi Grönlund (Finland) • Marie-Ange Guilleminot (France) • Dmitri Gutov (Russia) • Jitka Hanzlová (Germany) • Róza El-Hassan (Hungary) • Carl Michael von Hausswolff
Carl Michael von Hausswolff
Carl Michael von Hausswolff is a composer, visual artist and curator based in Stockholm, Sweden. His main tools are recording devices used in an ongoing investigation of electricity, frequency, architectural space and paranormal electronic interference...
(Sweden) • Christine Hill (Germany) • Carsten Höller
Carsten Höller
Carsten Höller is a German artist. He lives and works in Farsta, Stockholm, in Sweden. Today, he also shares a house in Ghana with colleague Marcel Odenbach.-Early life and education:...
(Germany) • Fabrice Hybert
Fabrice Hybert
-Overview:Internationally renowned artist, he works in many diverse ways - accumulation, proliferation, hybridization - sliding between painting, sculpture, installation and video....
(France) • IRWIN
IRWIN
IRWIN is a collective of Slovenian artists, primarily painters, and an original founding member of Neue Slowenische Kunst .- History :In 1983, the artists Dušan Mandič, Miran Mohar, Andrej Savski, Roman Uranjek, and Borut Vogelnik, coming from the punk and graffiti scene in Ljubljana, formed an...
(Slovenia) • Siraj Izhar (Great Britain) • Henrik Plenge Jacobsen (Denmark) • Robert Jankuloski (Macedonia) • Piotr Jaros (Poland) • Koo Jeong-a (France) • Ivana Keser (Croatia) • Soo-Ja Kim (South-Korea) • Suchan Kinoshita (Netherlands) • Oleg Kulik
Oleg Kulik
Oleg Kulik is a Russian performance artist of Ukrainian ethnicity, sculptor, photographer and curator.Kulik was born in Kiev, graduated from Kiev Art School and Kiev Geological Survey College , and was awarded a scholarship by the Berlin Senate in 1996...
(Russia) • Renée Kool (Netherlands) • Pavel Kopriva (Czech Republic) • Yuri Leiderman (Russia) • Tracy Mackenna (Scotland) • Esko Männikkö (Finland) • Eva Marisaldi (Italy) • Jenny Marketou (Greece) • Roger Meintjes (Portugal) • Regina Möller (Germany) • NEsTWORK (Netherlands) • Petteri Nisunen (Finland) • Roman Ondák (Slovakia) • Huang Yong Ping
Huang Yong Ping
Huang Yong Ping is a contemporary French visual artist of Chinese origin. Huang's work combines many media and cultural influence, but is particularly strongly influence by the intellectual abstraction of Dada and by Chinese numerology traditions...
(France) • Valeri Podoroga (Russia) • Tadej Pogacar (Slovenia) • Mathias Poledna (Austria) • Liza May Post (Netherlands) • Luca Quartana (Italy) • Tobias Rehberger (Germany) • Gerwald Rockenschaub (Austria) • Arsen Savadov
Arsen Savadov
Arsen Savadov is a noted Ukrainian conceptualist artist and painter of Armenian descent.-Biography:He was born in 1962 in Kiev, to the family of Vladimir Savadov, a book illustrator, originally from Baku, Azerbaijan. He studied painting at the Shevchenko State Art School.-References:...
(Ukraine) • Pit Schulz (Germany) • Georgy Senchenko (Ukraine) • subREAL (Rumania) • Nedko Solakov (Bulgaria) • János Sugár (Hungary) • Kathy Temin (Australia) • Hale Tenger (Turkey) • Jaan Toomik
Jaan Toomik
Jaan Toomik is a video artist and a painter, often described as the most widely acknowledged Estonian contemporary artist on the international scene.__FORCETOC__-Status:...
(Estonia) • Rirkrit Tiravanija
Rirkrit Tiravanija
Rirkrit Tiravanija is a contemporary artist residing in New York. He was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1961. His installations often take the form of stages or rooms for sharing meals, cooking, reading or playing music; architecture or structures for living and socializing are a core element...
(USA) • Didier Trenet (France) • Rosemarie Trockel
Rosemarie Trockel
Rosemarie Trockel is a German Artist, and an important figure in the international contemporary art movement.- Life :...
(Germany) • Mette Tronvoll (Scandinavia) • Uri Tzaig
Uri Tzaig
Uri Tzaig is an Israeli artist. Tzaig was born in Qiryat Gat and currently lives in Tel Aviv.Tzaig, who has a background in theater, works often in multimedia, video, and installations. His installations have appeared at the Centre Georges Pompidou, MASS MoCA, and other major international...
(Israel) • Paco Vacas (Spain) • Eulàlia Valldosera (Spain) • Lydia Venieri
Lydia Venieri
Lydia Venieri is a major Greek artist, and a descendant of the Greek branch of the Venier family. Born in Athens, she studied at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts, and later lived in Paris. She is currently living in New York...
(Greece) • Susann Walder (Switzerland) • Sam Taylor-Wood
Sam Taylor-Wood
Samantha "Sam" Taylor-Wood OBE , born Samantha Taylor, is an English filmmaker, photographer, and visual artist. Her directorial feature film debut came in 2009 with Nowhere Boy, a film based on the childhood experiences of The Beatles songwriter and singer John Lennon...
(Great Britain) • Catherine Yass
Catherine Yass
Catherine Yass is an English artist.Catherine Yass was born in 1963 in London and in her early years lived in Hampstead. She later studied at the Slade School of Art, London and then at Hochschule der Künste, Berlin...
(Great Britain)
Manifesta 2, LuxembourgLuxembourgLuxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland in the south...
, 1998
Manifesta 2 was held under the patronage of the Ministry of Culture of Luxembourg, curated by Robert Fleck, MariaLind and Barbara Vanderlinden, and included mostly site-specific work. For the first time, Manifesta included a series
of international discussions and debates and launched a cumulative ‘Info lab’ (the basis of Manifesta’s present growing archive), with up-to-date printed and audiovisual material about current artistic tendencies in 30 different European countries. Another innovative feature of Manifesta 2, which has been further developed for Manifesta 3 and 4, was the involvement of 30 young people from all over Europe in a training programme specially devised for Manifesta 2 with organisational and educational purposes. More than 43 European countries participated financially and organisationally in Manifesta 2, contributing, for example, to the curators’ and artists’ travel costs and other expenses related to transport and additional activities. The exhibition catalogue contained information about the infrastructure for contemporary visual art in approximately 30 European countries.
Overview Artists Manifesta 2
• Eija-Liisa AhtilaEija-Liisa Ahtila
Eija-Liisa Ahtila is a video artist and photographer. She lives and works in Helsinki.In 1998 Eija-Liisa Ahtila participated in the second edition of Manifesta. She was the winner of the inaugural Vincent Award in 2000. In 2002 she had a solo show at Tate Modern, and in 2006 her multi-screen video...
(Finland) • Kutlug Ataman
Kutlug Ataman
Kutluğ Ataman is a filmmaker and contemporary artist. He lives in Istanbul.-Life and career:Kutluğ Ataman received his school education in Istanbul before doing his university studies in the US. His interest in film started an early age, and led him to do film studies at UCLA where he graduated...
(Turkey) • Orla Barry (Great Britain) • Emese Benczúr (Hungary) • Christine Borland
Christine Borland
Christine Borland is a British artist and one of the Young British Artists . Borland attended the University of Ulster, and the Glasgow School of Art....
(Scotland) • Eriks Bozis (Latvia) • Maurizio Cattelan
Maurizio Cattelan
Maurizio Cattelan is an Italian artist based in New York. He is known for his satirical sculptures, particularly La Nona Ora , depicting the Pope John Paul II struck down by a meteorite....
(Italy) • Alicia Framis (Netherlands) • Dora Garcia (Netherlands / Belgium) • Dr. Galentin Gatev (Bulgaria) • Dominique Gonzales-Foerster (France) • Felix Gonzales-Torres (USA) • Carsten Höller
Carsten Höller
Carsten Höller is a German artist. He lives and works in Farsta, Stockholm, in Sweden. Today, he also shares a house in Ghana with colleague Marcel Odenbach.-Early life and education:...
(Germany) • Pierre Huyghe
Pierre Huyghe
Pierre Huyghe is a French artist who works in a variety of media from film and video to public interventions. He won the Hugo Boss Prize from the Guggenheim Museum in 2002.-Biography:...
(France) • Sanja Iveković
Sanja Iveković
Sanja Iveković is a Croatian photographer, sculptor and installation artist. Considered to be one of the leading artists from the former Yugoslavia, she continues to inspire many young female artists.-Biography:...
(Croatia) • Inessa Josing (Estonia) • Kristof Kintera (Czech Republic) • Elke Krystufek
Elke Krystufek
Elke Krystufek is an Austrian self portraitist working in a variety of media including: painting, sculpture, video and performance art.-Life:Krystufek studied at the Fine Arts Academy of Vienna in the early 1990s...
(Austria) • Peter Land
Peter Land
Peter Land is a New Zealand actor and singer known for his classical acting with the Royal National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company as well as appearances in many musicals.-Early life:...
(Denmark) • Maria Lindberg (Sweden) • Michel Majerus
Michel Majerus
Michel Majerus was a Luxemburgian artist whose work combined painting with digital media.His work was featured in a number of solo and group exhibitions in Europe and North America, most notably the "Pop Reloaded" exhibition in Los Angeles....
(Germany) • Bjarne Melgaard
Bjarne Melgaard
Bjarne Melgaard is a Norwegian artist based in New York.Melgaard was born in Sydney by Norwegian parents, raised in Oslo, Norway, and works and lives in New York. Early in his career Melgaard created controversial installations referencing subversive subcultures such as S&M and heavy metal music...
(Norway / Australia) • Deimantas Narkevicius (Lithuania) • Fanni Niemi-Junkola (Finland) • Honoré ’O (Belgium) • Boris Ondreicka (Slovakia) • Tanja Ostojic
Tanja Ostojic
Tanja Ostojić is a Serbian feminist performance artist.-The "EU Panties":In December 2005, Ostojić became well known in Europe as a result of the "EU Panties" poster, a satire of Gustave Courbet's L'Origine du monde. Ostojić's version displayed her own crotch, clothed in blue underwear complete...
(Jugoslavia) • Marko Peljhan (Slovenia) • Dan Perjovschi
Dan Perjovschi
Dan Perjovschi is an artist, writer and cartoonist born in 1961 in Sibiu, Romania. Perjovschi has over the past decade created drawings in museum spaces, most recently in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in which he created the drawing during business hours for patrons to see. The drawings...
(Rumania) • Franz Pomassl
Franz Pomassl
Franz Pomassl is an electronic sound and recording artist and DJ residing in Vienna, Austria, and is a co-founder of the Austrian Laton experimental techno label....
(Austria) • Antoine Prum (Luxembourg) • Tobias Rehberger (Germany) • Jeroen de Rijke / Willem de Rooij
Willem de Rooij
Willem de Rooij is an artist working in a variety of media, including film and installation.-Biography:Willem de Rooij studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam from 1990–95 and at the Rijksakademie there from 1997-98...
(Netherlands) • Bojan Sarcevic
Bojan Šarcevic
Bojan Šarčević is a Bosnian-French visual artist. His work includes video, installations, site-responsive architectural interventions, photographic collage, more or less abstract sculpture, and printed publications.-Life:...
(France) • Eran Schaerf (Germany / Belgium) • Tilo Schulz (Germany) • Nebojsa Soba Seric (Bosnia) • Ann-Sofi Sidén
Ann-Sofi Sidén
Ann-Sofi Sidén is a contemporarty Swedish artist. She had a traditional education and started out as a painter. She expanded into other mediums, including video, film, performance and sculpture. Sidén's styles and themes do not fit easy categorization....
(USA / Sweden) • Andreas Slominski (Germany) • Sean Snyder
Sean Snyder
Sean Snyder is a retired football punter, who was an all-American at Kansas State University. He is the son of Kansas State head football coach Bill Snyder.-High school:...
(Germany) • Apolonija Sustersic (Slovenia / Netherlands) • Sarah Sze
Sarah Sze
Sarah Sze is a contemporary artist who lives and works in New York City. Sze uses ordinary objects to create sculptures and site-specific installations.-Early life:Sze graduated Summa Cum Laude from Yale University in 1991...
(USA) • Bert Theis (Italy) • Piotr Uklánski • Gitte Villesen (Denmark) • Richard Wright
Richard Wright (artist)
Richard Wright is a British artist and musician.Wright was born in London. His family moved to Scotland when he was young. He attended Edinburgh College of Art from 1978 to 1982 and studied at Glasgow School of Art between 1993 and 1995 studying for a Master of Fine Art...
(Scotland)
Manifesta 3, LjubljanaLjubljanaLjubljana is the capital of Slovenia and its largest city. It is the centre of the City Municipality of Ljubljana. It is located in the centre of the country in the Ljubljana Basin, and is a mid-sized city of some 270,000 inhabitants...
, SloveniaSloveniaSlovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
, 2000
For Manifesta 3 the work by artists, artists’ collectives, urban planners and architects was spread over three main venues. For the first time, Manifesta received press coverage in the United States of America, but no less important was the high proportion of visitors from neighbouring countries in East and South-East Europe. Another brand new initiative was to give the exhibition a theme, which the curatorial team (Francesco Bonami, Ole Bouman, MariaHlavajova and Kathrin Rhomberg) named Border
Border
Borders define geographic boundaries of political entities or legal jurisdictions, such as governments, sovereign states, federated states and other subnational entities. Some borders—such as a state's internal administrative borders, or inter-state borders within the Schengen Area—are open and...
line Syndrome. Energies of Defence. In order to support the subject
they were exploring they also solicited catalogue contributions not only from a wide range of Slovenian and foreign intellectuals (philosophers, historians and sociologists among others), but also from the general public. The catalogue has turned today into a collector’s item. The nature of the events in Ljubljana reflected the thriving intellectual life of the city and the relevance of interdisciplinary practice in the arts – particularly, the crossover between visual art, cinema and performance, and interaction with new media.
Overview Artists Manifesta 3
• Gruppo A12 (Italy) • Adel AbdessemedAdel Abdessemed
Adel Abdessemed is a conceptual artist who lives and works in Paris, France. He is represented by David Zwirner, New York and Dvir Gallery, Tel Aviv....
(France) • Pawel Althamer
Pawel Althamer
Paweł Althamer is a contemporary Polish sculptor, collaborative artist, and creator of installations and video art. In 2000 he participated in Manifesta 3 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. He won the Vincent Award in 2004...
(Poland) • Rasmus Knud & Søren Andreasen (Denmark) • Maja Bajevic (Bosnia) • Simone Berti
Simone Berti
Simone Berti is an Italian professional basketball player who plays for Montepaschi Siena.-References:...
(Italy) • Ursula Biemann (Switzerland) • Roland Boden
Roland Boden
Roland Boden was a professional footballer who played as a full back.-References:...
(Germany) • Agnese Bule (Lithuania) • Nayia Frangouli & Yane Calovski (Great Britain / USA) • Phil Collins
Phil Collins
Philip David Charles "Phil" Collins, LVO is an English singer-songwriter, drummer, pianist and actor best known as a drummer and vocalist for British progressive rock group Genesis and as a solo artist....
(Northern Ireland) • Joost Conijn (Netherlands) • Josef Dabernig (Austria) • Colin Darke (Northern Ireland) • Michael Elmgreen
Elmgreen and Dragset
Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset are artist-collaborators since 1995 and their work explores the relationship between art, architecture and design....
& Ingar Dragset
Elmgreen and Dragset
Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset are artist-collaborators since 1995 and their work explores the relationship between art, architecture and design....
(Denmark) • FAT: S. Griffiths • C. Holland • S. Jacob (Great Britain) • Urs Fischer
Urs Fischer
Urs Fischer is a Swiss contemporary artist living in New York.Fischer’s installations and sculptures have been exhibited in some group exhibitions and biennales worldwide, including Manifesta 3 and the Venice Biennale -External links:* * * *...
(Great Britain / Switzerland) • Marcus Geiger (Austria) • Amit Goren (Israel) • Veli Granö (Finland) • Pravdoliub Ivanov (Bulgaria) • Ivana Jelavic (Croatia) • Daniel Jewesbury (Northern Ireland) • Selja Kameric (Bosnia) • Ian Kiaer
Ian Kiaer
Ian Kiaer is an artist based in London.Kiaer received his MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art, London in 1998 and his BA in Fine Art from Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, in 1995...
(Great Britain) • Koo Jeong-a (France) • Edward Krasinski (Poland) • Darij Kreuh (Slovenia) • Denisa Lehocká (Slovakia) • Alexander Melkonyan (Armenia) • Matthias Müller (Germany) • Paul Noble
Paul Noble
Paul Noble is a British artist, born in 1963 in the village of Dilston, Northumberland. He studied at Humberside College of Higher Education and Sunderland Polytechnic , before moving to London in 1987. He was one of the five founder members of the co-operative who formed the City Racing gallery...
(Great Britain) • Anton Olshvang (Russia) • Roman Ondák (Slovakia) • Anatoly Osmolovsky (Russia) • Adrian Paci (Albania / Italy) • Manfred Pernice (Germany) • Diego Perrone
Diego Perrone
Diego Perrone full name Diego Rafael Perrone Vienes is a Uruguayan footballer. He plays for Danubio.-External links:**...
(Italy) • Susan Philipsz
Susan Philipsz
Susan Philipsz is a Scottish artist who won the 2010 Turner Prize. In her youth, she sang with her sisters in a Catholic church choir in Maryhill. She studied at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee from 1989–1993 and then at the University of Ulster in Belfast in 1993-4. She was a...
(Northern Ireland) • Marjetica Potrc
Marjetica Potrc
Marjetica Potrč is an artist and architect based in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Her interdisciplinary practice includes on-site projects, research, architectural case studies, and series of drawings...
(Slovenia) • Arturas Raila (Lithuania) • Anri Sala
Anri Sala
Anri Sala is a contemporary artist whose primary medium is video. He studied art at the Albanian Academy of Arts from 1992 to 1996. He also studied video at the Ecole Nationale des Arts Décoratifs, Paris and film direction in Le Fresnoy-Studio National des Arts Contemporains, Tourcoing...
(Albania / France) • Bülent Sangar (Turkey) • Sanna Sarva (Finland) • Tomo Savic-Gecan (Netherlands / Croatia) • Schie 2.0: J.Konings • T.Matton • L.Verweij (Netherlands) • Ene-Liis Semper (Estonia) • Stalker
Stalker
-In media:* Stalker , a 1995 dark ambient album by Lustmord & Robert Rich, inspired by the film* Stalker , an episode of the American television series CSI...
(Italy) • Simon J. Starling (Scotland) • Skart:D. Prostic • M.Postic • T.Moraca • P. de Bruyne • D. Balmazovic (Jugoslavia) • Nika Span (Slovenia / Germany) • Nasrin Tabatabai (Netherlands) • Sarah Tripp (Scotland) • Francisco Tropa (Portugal) • Joëlle Tuerlinckx (Belgium) • Sisley Xhafa (Italy) • Gregor Zivic (Austria) • Jasmila Zbanic
Jasmila Žbanic
Jasmila Žbanić is a film director from Bosnia and Herzegovina, and a graduate of Academy of Fine Arts in Sarajevo, department for theater and film directing. She also worked as a puppeteer in the Vermont-based Bread and Puppet Theater and as a clown in a Lee De Long workshop. She is noted for the...
(Bosnia)
Manifesta 4, FrankfurtFrankfurtFrankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
, GermanyGermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, 2002
Manifesta 4 took place in more than 15 venues and urban sites in the city of Frankfurt/Main and more than a dozen theoreticians played a major role in site-related workshops, discussions and programmes. The three female curators Iara Boubnova, Nuria Enguita Mayo and Stephanie Moisdon Trembley created an extensive digital and physical Manifesta archive that resulted from their extensive travel, a library called ‘Trespassing Space’ and a Manifesta online project called e-manifesta.org. On this occasion, Manifesta 4 incorporated the support of more than 16 sponsors and non-profit organisations, as well as the direct support through artist’s projects by more than 40 national arts organisations.Overview Artists Manifesta 4
• 0100101110101101.org • Halil AltindereHalil Altındere
Halil Altındere is a contemporary artist focusing on the resistance to repressive structures and marginalization within official systems of representation, such as humorously manipulating state documents and official insignia such as flags, passports and banknotes...
(Turkey) • Daniel García Andújar
Daniel García Andújar
Daniel García Andújar is a visual media artist, activist and art theorist from Spain. He lives and works in Barcelona. His work has been exhibited widely, including Manifesta 4 and the Venice Biennale...
(Spain) • Apsolutno (Yugoslavia) • Ibon Aranberri (Spain) • Olivier Bardin (France) • Yael Bartana
Yael Bartana
Yael Bartana is an Israeli video artist, who lives and works in Amsterdam and Tel Aviv.- Work :Yael Bartana has had several solo exhibitions at among others Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, PS1 in New York and Moderna Museet Malmö...
(Israel) • Massimo Bartolini (Italy) •Marc Bijl
Marc Bijl
Marc Bijl is a Dutch artist who lives and works in Berlin. His works are based upon social issues and their use of symbols and rules...
(Netherlands) • Pierre Bismuth
Pierre Bismuth
Pierre Bismuth is a contemporary artist. Through efficient and often humorous gestures, Bismuth interrupts pre-established codes of reading the images and objects that pervade daily life, from headline stories in newspapers to magazine clippings from gentlemen's magazines, to even the color of the...
(France) • Bleda y Rosa (Spain) • Elisabetta Benassi (Italy)• BLESS
Bless
Bless may refer to:* Blessing, a religious pronouncement* Bless , hip-hop artist from Montreal* "Bless" , a 2010 single by L'Arc-en-Ciel* Bless, another name for the Swedish group Bubbles* Bless , an album by Bubbles...
• Lionel Bovier • Luchezar Boyadjiev (Bulgaria) • Fernando Bryce (Peru) • Gerard Byrne
Gerard Byrne
Gerard Byrne is an Irish artist based in Dublin. He works primarily in film, video and photography in large-scale installations which reconstruct imagery found in magazine published in the 1970s through the 1980s...
(Ireland) • Roberto Cuoghi (Italy) • Jonas Dahlberg (Sweden) • Kathy Deepwell • Dagmar Demming • Branislav Dimitrijevic • Esra Ersen • Jon Mikel Euba (Spain) • Jeanne Faust (Germany) • João Fernandes
João Fernandes
João Fernandes was a Portuguese explorer of the 15th century. He was perhaps the earliest of modern explorers in the upland of West Africa, and a pioneer of the European slave- and gold-trade of Guinea.We first hear of him as a captive of the Barbary Moors in the western Mediterranean; while...
• Zlatan Filipovic (Sarajevo, Bosnia and Hercegovina) • Finger
Finger
A finger is a limb of the human body and a type of digit, an organ of manipulation and sensation found in the hands of humans and other primates....
(Berlin) • Christoph Fink (Belgium) • Nina Fischer & Maroan El Sani (Germany/Germany) • Dirk Fleischmann (Germany) •Andreas Fogarasi (Austria) • Luke Fowler
Luke Fowler
Luke Fowler is an artist, filmmaker and musician based in Glasgow. He studied printmaking at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in Dundee. His documentary films have explored counter cultural figures including Scottish psychiatrist R. D...
(Great Britain) • Andrea Geyer (Germany) • Alonso Gil • Gudmundsdottir (Iceland) • Alban Hajdinaj (Albania) • Lise Harlev (Denmark) • Institut für Kulturanthropologie und Europäische Ethnologie (Germany) • Jens Hoffmann
Jens Hoffmann
Jens Hoffmann Mesèn is a writer and exhibition organizer. He has organzied exhibitions since 1997 and is currently the Director of the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco where he also directs the Capp Street Project artist-in-residence...
(in collaboration with Natascha Sadr Haghighian
Natascha Sadr Haghighian
Natascha Sadr Haghighian is an artist who lives and works in Berlin, Germany.Her work is "primarily concerned with the socio-political implications of constructions of vision from a central perspective and with abstract events within the structure of industrial society, as well as with the...
& Tino Sehgal
Tino Sehgal
Tino Sehgal is a British-German artist based in Berlin. His works, which he calls "constructed situations", involve one or more people carrying out instructions conceived by the artist.-Early life and education:...
) • Takehito Koganezawa (Japan) • Erden Kosova • Andreja Kuluncic
Andreja Kulunčić
Andreja Kulunčić is a contemporary Croatian artist, living and working in Zagreb, Croatia.In her art practice she deals with current social issues by appropriating various conventional forms of communication, for example: radio shows, advertisements, newspaper articles, etc...
(Yugoslavia) • Antal Lakner (Hungary) • Franck Larcade • Anton Litvin (Russia) • Gintaras Makarevicius • Ján Mancuska (Slovakia) • Mathieu Mercier (France) • Suzana Milevska • Gianni Motti (Italy) • Ivan Moudov • Oliver Musovik (Macedonia) • Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani (Germany/Germany) • Olivier Nottellet • OHIO Photomagazine • Maria Papadimitriou (Greece) • Florian Pumhösl (Austria) • Tobias Putrih (Slovenia) • Radek Group • Sal Randolph
Sal Randolph
Sal Randolph is an American artist and theorist who works with issues of gift-giving, money, alternate economies, and social architecture. She founded the non-curated sound-exchange web project Opsound, which functions through the use of music released exclusively under a copyleft license...
(USA) • Revolver Archiv für aktuelle Kunst (Germany) • Gianni Romano • ROR Revolutions on Request (Finland) • rraum-rraum02-ideoblast (Germany) • Pia Rönicke (Denmark) Natascha Sadr Haghighian
Natascha Sadr Haghighian
Natascha Sadr Haghighian is an artist who lives and works in Berlin, Germany.Her work is "primarily concerned with the socio-political implications of constructions of vision from a central perspective and with abstract events within the structure of industrial society, as well as with the...
• Hedwig Saxenhuber • Hans Schabus (Austria) • Tino Seghal • Kalin Serapionov (Bulgaria) • Bruno Serralongue (France) • Erzen Shkololli • Sancho Silva (Portugal) • Monika Sosnowska
Monika Sosnowska
Monika Sosnowska was born 1972 in Ryki, Poland. She studied at the Painting Department of the , and the in Amsterdam Monika Sosnowska was born 1972 in Ryki, Poland. She studied at the Painting Department of the (1993–1998), and the in Amsterdam Monika Sosnowska was born 1972 in Ryki, Poland....
(Poland) • Laura Stasíulytë (Lithuania) • Mika Taanila
Mika Taanila
Mika Taanila is a Finnish film director and visual artist.His films can be categorized somewhere between the traditions of classic documentary film-making, avant-garde and video art...
(Finland) • The Construction & Deconstruction Institute (Netherlands) • Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas (Lithuania) • Jasper van den Brink (Netherlands) • Edin Vejselovic Edo (Macedonia) •wemgehoertdiestadt • Måns Wrange (Sweden) • Haegue Yang
Haegue Yang
Haegue Yang is a visual artist. Yang represented South Korea in the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009. She has exhibited at Portikus, Frankfurt and Walker Art Center , she also participated in the 2006 Sao Paulo Biennial.-External links:...
(Korea)• Jun Yang (China) • Zapp
Zapp
Zapp may refer to:*Zapp , a 1980s funk band based in Ohio, USA*Zapp , the debut album by the funk band*Zapp Brannigan, a fictional character from the television series Futurama...
(Netherlands) • Artur Żmijewski
Manifesta 5, Donostia-San Sebastian, SpainSpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, 2004
The Basque regionBasque Country (historical territory)
The Basque Country is the name given to the home of the Basque people in the western Pyrenees that spans the border between France and Spain on the Atlantic coast....
– one of a specific dynamic historical and socio-political background – has a strong sense of
cultural and political identity and a determination to develop coherent cultural policies. This attitude together with its geographical position in Southern Europe made Donostia-San Sebastian a perfect location for the 5th edition of Manifesta, as curated by Massimiliano Gioni and Marta Kuzma. At the time of M5, one of Manifesta's long-term strategic aims was to achieve a stronger North-South balance, in addition to the already existing East-West balance in
all aspects of its activities, including location, board members, curatorial teams and artistic representation. One particularly innovative program within the Biennale was Manifesta 5’s long-lasting partnership with the post-graduate
Berlage Institute Rotterdam in the Netherlands, functioning as an urban mediator at the biennale and as a collaboration between architects and artists, exploring how contemporary art practices is extending in the reality of architecture and urban planning.TOOAUP
Overview Artists Manifesta 5
• Bas Jan AderBas Jan Ader
Bas Jan Ader was a Dutch conceptual artist, performance artist, photographer and filmmaker. He lived in Los Angeles for the last 10 years of his life. Ader's work was in many instances presented as photographs and film of his performances...
(Netherlands) • Victor Alimpiev and Sergey Vishnevsky (Russia) • Huseyin Alptekin (Turkey) Micol Assaël (Italy) • Sven Augustijnen (Belgium) • Zbynûk Baladrán (Czech Republic) • John Bock
John Bock
John Bock is a German artist. He studied in Hamburg, Germany and lives and works in Berlin.- Work :Bock is a multi-media artist primarily known for his performances...
(Germany) • Michaël Borremans
Michaël Borremans
Michaël Borremans is a Belgian painter and filmmaker who lives and works in Ghent. His painting technique draws on 18th century art as well as the works of Édouard Manet and Degas. The artist also cites the Spanish court painter Diego Velázquez as an important influence...
(Belgium) • Sergey Bratkov (Russia) Carlos Bunga (Portugal) • Duncan Campbell (Great Britain) • Cengis Çekil (Turkey) • Illya Chichkan
Illya Chichkan
Illya Chichkan . He is a representative of the art movement "Ukrainian New Wave", which developed in the 90's. He lives and works in Berlin, Germany and Kiev, Ukraine as a painter, author of intallations, photo and video-projects....
and Kyrill Protsenko (Ukraine) • D.A.E. (Peio Aguirre and Leire Vergara) • Jan de Cock
Jan De Cock
Jan De Cock is a contemporary Belgian visual artist. De Cock creates large structures – usually in plywood – that refer to early modernist and suprematist sculpture and architecture. He also creates photographical and video work. He was educated in Ghent and Brussels...
(Belgium) • Angela de la Cruz
Angela de la Cruz
Angela de la Cruz is a Spanish artist. She was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2010. De la Cruz was born in La Coruña. She studied philosophy at the University of Santiago de Compostela, before moving to London in 1989, where she studied art at the Chelsea College of Art, Goldsmiths College...
(Spain) • Jeremy Deller
Jeremy Deller
Jeremy Deller is an English conceptual, video and installation artist. He is a Turner Prize winner.Deller is best-known for his Battle of Orgreave , a reenactment of the actual Battle of Orgreave which occurred during the UK miners' strike in 1984.-Life and work:Jeremy Deller was born in London,...
(Great Britain) • Andrea Faciu
Andrea Faciu
Andrea Faciu is a Romanian artist who lives since 1991 in Germany.She graduated from the Akademie der Bildenden Künste Munich, where she studied with Olaf Metzel.She lives in Munich, Germany and Berlin.-Exhibitions:...
(Romania) • Iñaki Garmendia (Spain) • Geert Goiris (Belgium) • Kim Hiorthøy
Kim Hiorthøy
Kim Hiorthøy is a Norwegian electronic musician, graphic designer, illustrator, filmmaker and writer.-Biography:Hiorthøy was born and raised in Trondheim, Norway, and studied at the Trondheim Academy of Fine Art as well as the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen...
(Norway) • Laura Horelli (Finland) • Külli Kaats (Estonia) • Johannes Kahrs
Johannes Kahrs (artist)
Johannes Kahrs is an artist based in Berlin.He completed his studies at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin in 1994....
(Germany) • Leopold Kessler
Leopold Kessler
Leopold Kessler - modern artist born in Munich. In his artworks he is exploring limit between public and private space. He is making small interventions in space. They are sometimes hard to notice but very accurate and site-specific...
(Austria) • Mark Leckey
Mark Leckey
Mark Leckey is a British artist, working with collage art, music and video. His found art and found footage pieces span several videos, most notably Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore and Industrial Lights and Magic , for which he won the 2008 Turner Prize.-Life:Leckey was born in Birkenhead, near...
(Great Britain) • Maria Lusitano (Portugal) • Mark Manders
Mark Manders
Mark Manders is a Dutch artist. He was born in 1968 in Volkel, Netherlands. Manders's body of work consists mainly of installations, drawings, sculptures and short films. Typical of his work is the arrangement of random objects, such as tables, chairs, light bulbs, blankets and dead animals. He is...
(Netherlands) • Asier Mendizabal (Spain) • Boris Mikhailov
Boris Mikhailov (photographer)
Boris Andreyevich Mikhailov is a fine art photographer who has been described as one of the most important artists to have emerged from the former USSR...
(Ukraine) • Oksana Pasaiko • Anu Pennanen (Finland) • Garrett Phelan (Ireland) • Kirsten Pieroth
Kirsten Pieroth
Kirsten Pieroth is an German artist. She has put up many exhibitions in Berlin, Copenhagen and Brussels.- External links :*...
(Germany) • Paola Pivi
Paola Pivi
Paola Pivi is an Italian multimedia artist who lives and works in Anchorage, Alaska. In her work, she uses a wide range of art techniques, such as photography, sculpture and performance. Some of her works contain performance elements, at times involving live animals and people...
(Italy) • Office of Alternative Urban Planning (Verónica Arcos, José Arnaud, Sannah Belzer, Sebastián Khourian, Claudia Strahl, Mónica Villate, Constanze Zehi) • Marc Quer (France) • Daniel Roth
Daniel Roth
Daniel Roth is a watchmaking company based in the Vallée de Joux, in Switzerland. The company was created in 1989 and was acquired by the Bulgari Group in 2000....
(Germany) • Michael Sailstorfer (Austria) • Silke Schatz
Silke Schatz
Silke Schatz is an artist based in Cologne.Schatz attended Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig from 1987–95....
(Germany) • Markus Schinwald (Austria) • Conrad Shawcross
Conrad Shawcross
Conrad Shawcross is a British artist, the son of the writers William Shawcross and Marina Warner. He specialises in wooden mechanical sculptures based on philosophical and scientific ideas.-Life and work:...
(Great Britain) • Eyal Sivan
Eyal Sivan
Eyal Sivan is an Israeli filmmaker and critic noted for his criticisms of Israeli policies.-Biography:Born in Haifa, Sivan attended school in Jerusalem, but dropped out to pursue photography...
and Michel Khleifi
Michel Khleifi
Michel Khleifi is a Palestinian film writer, director and producer. He emigrated from Israel in 1970 and now resides in Belgium. There, he studied television and theatre directing at the Institut National Supérieur des Arts du Spectacle . After graduating from INSAS, he worked in Belgium...
(Israel/ Palestine) • Hito Steyerl
Hito Steyerl
Hito Steyerl has produced a variety of work as a filmmaker and author in the field of essayist documentary video and post-colonial critique. Her principal topics of interest are media and the global circulation of images. In 2004 she participated in Manifesta 5, The European Biennial of...
(Germany) • Misha Stroj (Slovenia) • Patrick Tuttofuoco (Italy) • Vangelis Vlahos (Greece) • Gillian Wearing
Gillian Wearing
Gillian Wearing OBE RA is an English conceptual artist, one of the YBAs, and winner of the annual British fine arts award, The Turner Prize, in 1997. On 11 December 2007, Wearing was elected as lifetime member of the Royal Academy of Arts in London....
(Great Britain) • Amelie von Wulffen (Germany) • Cathy Wilkes
Cathy Wilkes
Cathy Wilkes is an artist from Northern Ireland, who creates video installations. She is a 2008 Turner Prize nominee.-Life and work:...
(Scotland) • Yevgeniy Yufit (Russia) • Olivier Zabat (France) • David Zink Yi
David Zink Yi
David Zink Yi is a contemporary artist working primarily in video, photography, and sculpture. He has studied at the Universität der Künste, Berlin, Germany from 1998–2002 and at the Meisterschüler Lothar Baumgarten from 2002-2003...
(Peru) • Darius Ziura (Lithuania)
Manifesta 6, NicosiaNicosiaNicosia from , known locally as Lefkosia , is the capital and largest city in Cyprus, as well as its main business center. Nicosia is the only divided capital in the world, with the southern and the northern portions divided by a Green Line...
, CyprusCyprusCyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
, 2006
As their project for Manifesta 6, the curatorial team of Mai Abu ElDahab, Anton VidokleAnton Vidokle
Anton Vidokle is a Russian artist, curator, and writer. In 1999, he founded e-flux, a paid contemporary art newswire and critical journal. From 2006 to 2007, he organized unitednationsplaza, a temporary art school in Berlin involving well-known contemporary artists and critics including Boris...
and Florian Waldvogel intended to use the capital, network and infrastructure of Manifesta
along with the local resources to start an experimental art school
Art school
Art school is a general term for any educational institution with a primary focus on the visual arts, especially illustration, painting, photography, sculpture, and graphic design. The term applies to institutions with elementary, secondary, post-secondary or undergraduate, or graduate or...
. The school, bi-communal and international in composition, was to be formed in Nicosia
Nicosia
Nicosia from , known locally as Lefkosia , is the capital and largest city in Cyprus, as well as its main business center. Nicosia is the only divided capital in the world, with the southern and the northern portions divided by a Green Line...
around a site-specific exhibition materialized through short and long-term residency programs resulting in a production of a number of new works and events in Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
, and might have gone on to become a permanent institution. Manifesta 6 was canceled three months before the opening. Afterward, Vidokle and some of his Manifesta collaborators organized a similar independent project called unitednationsplaza.
Manifesta 7, Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, ItalyItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, 2008
In 2008, for the first time Manifesta took place not in a city but in a whole region: Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, ItalyItaly
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
. The area has been selected for its historical heritage, its artistic and cultural facilities and especially for its striking examples of industrial archaeology buildings, which are linked to the work history and the progressive industrialisation of the territory.
Manifesta 7 formally came to an end on November 2, 2008 after a period of 111 days of intense activity. Manifesta 7 was curated as a collaborative effort by three teams, consisting of Adam Budak, Anselm Franke/Hila Peleg and Raqs Media Collective
Raqs Media Collective
Raqs Media Collective is a group of three media practitioners - Jeebesh Bagchi , Monica Narula and Shuddhabrata Sengupta - based in New Delhi...
, and was organised by a large international team, which was managed by Hedwig Fijen, Andreas Hapkemeyer and Fabio Cavallucci. Manifesta 7 attracted more than 108,000 visitors.
The positive response to Manifesta 7 has been confirmed by the presence of numerous, different audience groups, as well as the widespread coverage in the local, national and international press. Art critics have described this edition as the best Manifesta so far. 1,615 journalists from Italy and abroad registered to visit the Manifesta 7 exhibitions. These events showcased painting, sculpture, video, installation and sound works, the majority of which were specially conceived for the occasion by 230 participating artists, architects and writers from around the world.
Overview Artists Manifesta 7
For an overview of all the artists who contributed to Manifesta 7please refer to the Manifesta 7 Artist page.
Manifesta 8, MurciaMurcia-History:It is widely believed that Murcia's name is derived from the Latin words of Myrtea or Murtea, meaning land of Myrtle , although it may also be a derivation of the word Murtia, which would mean Murtius Village...
, SpainSpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, 2010
On January 9, 2011, Manifesta 8 – the European Biennial of Contemporary Art, came to a close after 100 days in the host cities of Murcia and Cartagena in southeast Spain. Manifesta 8 took place in 14 venues, five of which were historical buildings specially refurbished for Manifesta, plus four media spaces. Manifesta 8 was curated by three independent curatorial collectives, each of them developing a project as an autonomous curatorial contribution. The collectives are ACAF – Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum, CPS – Chamber of Public Secrets and tranzit.org. The positive results achieved by Manifesta 8 in the Region of Murcia have been attested by 110,000 visitors, who have been welcomed at the 14 venues during the exhibition period. Furthermore over 10% of the total visitors to Manifesta 8 participated to one of the many education, outreach and art mediation programs on offer.For the first time, the Biennial integrated a sub-theme in its title – a dialogue with northern Africa as a direct consequence of geopolitical issues in the region where it took place. In different interdisciplinary projects, this theme was sometimes explicit, sometimes inferred and sometimes highlighted in historical films, photographs and aligned works by artists from Africa, with particular emphasis on the history of Arabic culture rooted in the Region of Murcia. Manifesta 8 incorporated a large number of Parallel Events spread throughout the region of Murcia, as well as television and radio programs, publications, Internet sites and multi-media projects.
Manifesta 8 reached record attendance of over 50,000 visitors within its first month after opening on the 9th October, and has been described as "monstrous in size, stunning in its scope and uncompromisingly experimental in its approach" by the Wall Street Journal.
Overview Artists Manifesta 8
Approximately 150 artists were commissioned to participate at Manifesta 8, ranging (alphabetically) from AA The Arts Assembly to Raed Yassin.AA The ART ASSEMBLY,
Abed Anouti,
AGM 10 Annual General Meeting,
Basma AlSharif,
Esref Armagan,
Mounira Al Solh,
Babi Badalov,
Backbench,
Brumaria,
Erick Beltran,
Gonzalo Ballester,
Igor & Ivan Buharov,
Lene Berg,
Michael Paul Britto,
Neil Beloufa,
Pablo Bronstein,
Banu Cennetoglu / Shiri Zinn,
Boris Charmatz,
Celine Condorelli,
Common Culture,