Auckland Art Gallery in collaboration with Auckland Arts Festival will present Julian Rosefeldt’s immersive 13-channel film installation Manifesto, featuring Cate Blanchett, from Saturday 24 February 2018.
In Manifesto (2015), Rosefeldt pays homage to the tradition of artist manifestos, exploring declarations from different time periods and art movements. In meshing these with contemporary scenarios and characters, Rosefeldt ultimately questions the role of the artist in society today.
Manifesto draws on the writings of Futurists, Dadaists, Fluxus artists, Suprematists, Situationists and other artist groups, as well as the musings of individual artists, architects, dancers and filmmakers, which are dissected and reassembled by Rosefeldt on 13 screens each measuring 4.2m wide by 2.4m high.
Cate Blanchett imbues new dramatic life into these manifestos by inhabiting multiple personas, including a school teacher, factory worker, choreographer, punk, newsreader, scientist, puppeteer, widow, homeless man and more.
Manifesto brings the viewer into an immersive exhibition space to encounter the grand ideas of each of Blanchett’s characters, at times humourous and always thought provoking, which play out simultaneously across the 13 screens.
Rosefeldt’s work reveals both the performative component and the political significance of these declarations. Often written in youthful rage, they not only express the wish to change the world through art, but also reflect the voice of a specific generation.
Exploring the powerful urgency of these historical statements, which were composed with passion and conviction by artists sometimes decades ago, Manifesto questions whether the words and sentiments have withstood the passage of time. Can they be applied universally? And how have the dynamics between politics, art and life shifted?
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