“Manifesto is an homage to the beauty of artists’ manifestos – a manifesto of manifestos.”
– Rosefeldt
This summer ACMI will unveil the world premiere of Manifesto (2015), a new thirteen-channel work by pre-eminent artist Julian Rosefeldt, starring Cate Blanchett, blurring the lines between cinema and visual art.
So, what, might you ask, is an artist manifesto?
An art manifesto is a public declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of an artist or artistic movement. Manifestos are a standard feature of the various movements in the modernist avant-garde and are still written today. (source: wikipedia)
Rosefeldt has edited and reassembled a collage of artists’ manifestos, ultimately questioning the role of the artist in society today. Manifesto draws on the writings of Futurists, Dadaists, Fluxus artists, Suprematists, Situtationists, Dogma 95 and other artist groups, and the musings of individual artists, architects, dancers and filmmakers. Passing the philosophies of Claes Oldenburg, Yvonne Rainer, Kazimir Malevich, André Breton, Elaine Sturtevant, Sol LeWitt, Jim Jarmusch, and other influencers through his lens.
Performing these ‘new manifestos’ while inhabiting thirteen different personas – among them a school teacher, a puppeteer, a newsreader, a factory worker and a homeless man – Blanchett imbues new dramatic life into these famous words in unexpected contexts.
Rosefeldt’s work questions whether these passionate statements, composed by artists with utter conviction, have withstood the passage of time. Can they be applied universally? How have the dynamics between politics, art and life shifted? And what is the artist’s role in society today?
“Manifesto challenges us to think deeply about our own manifesto.”
– Katrina Sedgwick, CEO and Director of ACMI.
The exhibition brings together Rosefeldt’s’s previous works Deep Gold (2013), Stunned Man (Trilogy of Failure II) (2004) and The Soundmaker (Trilogy of Failure I) (2004), along with the newly commissioned work.
Manifesto (2015) has been commissioned by a unique group of partners that includes ACMI, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin and Sprengel Museum in Hanover.
Julian Rosefeldt: Manifesto is on at ACMI this summer from Wednesday 9 December 2015 to Sunday 13 March 2016. Entry is free. For more information, visit the website.
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