German artist Julian Rosefeldt produced
Manifesto in 2015. This immersive video installation consisting of thirteen large-screen projections stands as a tribute to the literary power of artistic manifestos. This artwork/event, which lies at the crossroads between film, performance and installation, gives the MAC’s audiences an opportunity to personally experience an important piece by a major artist whose work remains relatively little known.
Manifesto allows audiences to experience a series of scenes screened simultaneously showing us the same actor (Cate Blanchett) taking on various roles. All of the monologues spoken—actually, the only words spoken in the piece—are formed out of various artistic manifestos published over the last 150 years or so. From schoolteacher to homeless man, the thirteen characters embodied by Blanchett pronounce the manifestos of Claes Oldenburg, Yvonne Rainer, Kazimir Malevich, André Breton, Elaine Sturtevant, Sol LeWitt and Jim Jarmusch, among others.
Manifesto has been mounted in more than a dozen cities around the world; its Montréal presentation will be only its second in North America, after the Park Avenue Armory in New York.
Conference with Julian Rosefeldt
On the occasion of the exhibition
Manifesto, the MAC is presenting a conference by artist Julian Rosefeldt on Saturday, October 20 at 5 pm in the auditorium H-110 at Concordia University, 1455, boul. de Maisonneuve West.
Biography
Berlin-based artist Julian Rosefeldt is internationally reknowned for his visually opulent and meticulously choreographed moving-image artworks, mostly presented as complex multi-screen installations. Inspired by the histories of film, art and popular culture, Rosefeldt uses familiar cinematic tropes to carry viewers into surreal, theatrical realms where the inhabitants are absorbed by the rituals of everyday life. He employs humour and satire to seduce audiences into familiar worlds made strange.
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