++++ Manifesta is mobilizing. For many months already, before the wandering biennial, today with a trio of women in charge, settles down for the fourth time throughout the summer in a metropolis, it has been moving people. Since January curiosity in the large event costing 1.8 million euros has being stimulated. The European Biennial of Contemporary Art, as the enterprise proudly calls itself, has been manifesting itself since the beginning of the year in lectures, mainly in English because of the speakers, who are located in important European art centres. Among the cheerleaders for the event are Franck Larcade from the Consonni Centre for Contemporary Art in Bilbao, Joao Fernandes from the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art in Portuguese Porto, and Katy Deepwell from n.paradoxa, her feminist art periodical which comes out in London.
Thanks to the kind co-operation of the Frankfurt Städel School, the lectures are taking place there. On such evenings questions are posed such as the extent to which "the spaces of art are open for political counter-strategies". Or whether women artists have a potential "to emancipatively draw attention with their works to present-day problems of migration, globalization, poverty and Disneyization". The ladies and gentlemen eloquently tell the inside story there. The fact that the feminist program which was believed to be passé is apparently mentioned only en passant but is a main focus may have something to do with the gender of the makers of Manifesta. These are Iara Boubnova from Sofia, the Spaniard Nuria Enguita Mayo and Stéphanie Moisdon Trembley from Paris. One could be a little surprised about the Italian Gianni Romano, initiator of the first Italian web site for art, who will be speaking in May and announces that he is coming from the Diaspora, from "a country which does not have any museums for contemporary art". With all due respect, Mr Romano, in which country are you really living?
So much for the eloquent prelude. Things get serious on 25 May. Manifesta, whose curators and contents since the premiere in 1996 in Rotterdam change regularly, is putting up its tent in Frankfurt/Main. What has remained the same are the form of organization and the difficulties of those responsible to speak plainly in providing advance information.
With regard to timing, the art event is closely co-ordinated with documenta, which begins a little later, and at the same time is being mollycoddled to such an extent by the Art Frankfurt fair (see the preliminary report on page 24) that the dates for the art fair have been postponed to avoid clashing with Manifesta 4 and its invitation to get people to come to Frankfurt.
So there are good prospects for art lovers in Frankfurt. But what will they see? More than 50 artists from 30 European countries will be showing their works in exhibition spaces and public places until 25 August, we are told. "Manifesta 4 is supposed to unfold as a project as far as possible without a thematic framework," the curators declare. They reveal that "we have tried to make as many contacts as possible on our journeys, contacts with people in various contexts and situations". And the contacts should pay off. "The project will unravel rhizomatic structures which can connect one project with another, one group with another and both, in turn, with the physical place."
So far it sounds like modern network thinking and is artistically correct, but what is the structure supposed to mean, "which is situated in that fleeting moment in which a certain practice moves itself from one territory to another"? In any case, the host is being given pride of place. "Those who visit Manifesta 4 will experience the urbane diversity of Frankfurt and the cultural and other activities of this city on manifold levels," the team of curators promises.
The artists are mostly under forty years of age. Germany is represented by Pia Greschner from Cassel, Jeanne Faust from Wiesbaden, the Frankfurt group ‘finger’ which was founded in 1998, Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani who come from Emden and Duisburg, Andrea Geyer from Freiburg, Vanessa Joan Müller from Hamburg, the Hamburg group wemgehörtdiestadt (who does this town belong to?) and rraum-rraum02-ideoplast from Frankfurt.
The ambitious event, which moves around in order to create multiple perspectives and demonstrate flexibility at its various stations, attempts to question the relations between art, culture and politics. That cannot turn out to be so bad. So, with a positive attitude, we will wait to see how Manifesta takes root on the River Main. Franck Larcade will prove to be right. "The only valid field for critical action is reality itself."