++++ About ninety per cent of the participants in Manifesta 4, which will take place in Frankfurt from 25 May until 25 August, have in the meantime be decided on, the organizers announced yesterday. They still do not want to say anything about the individual projects, however. Only after all the artists are definitively known do the three curator's of the European biennial for contemporary art want to lift the veil. Great events, of course, cast their shadow in advance, and so today a series of lectures for Manifesta 4 begins. The lectures will be held on each scheduled day at 7 p.m. in the Städelschule (Dürerstr. 10). This evening, Branislav Dimitrjevic from Belgrade will make a start by talking on the topic "The crowded void: Locating and thinking visual art in contemporary Serbia". On 25 January, Hedwig Saxenhuber from Vienna will pose the question, "Who's afraid of the boogie man?" Art critics and curators, art communicators and theoreticians from Spain, Portugal, Norway, Italy and other European countries will follow.
In the meantime it has become clear at which venues in the city Manifesta will present itself: on the ground floor of the Städel Museum, in the Städel Garden and the Städelschule, in the former municipal drainage offices in Große Rittergasse, at the Frankfurt Kunstverein, in the area around the Schirn Kunsthalle, in Portikus, on the routes between the venues as well as other locations in public spaces. One of the focuses of the works will be on Frankfurt as an international nodal point for travellers, as a city for transit passage, for channelling streams of information and cultural diversity. The curators, Iara Boubnova, Nuria Enguita Mayo and Stéphanie Moisdon Trembley, have been doing research all over Europe for about a year to discover innovative artistic trends. (zer)