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++++ INVITED TO INVITE
(Jens Hoffmann - with Natascha Sadr Haghighian and Tino Sehgal)

This section of Manifesta 4, conceived by curator Jens Hoffmann, will unfold itself in three parts exemplifying three prevalent forms of production and articulation of curators’ work: the exhibition, the essay (see catalogue) and the lecture. The exhibition part is a contribution to the general exhibition of Manifesta 4 in the form of two seemingly invisible interventions inside the overall exhibition. The two artists invited by Hoffmann to collaborate with him in this section are Natascha Sadr Haghighian and Tino Sehgal. Haghighian will focus on ideas of exhibition techniques, especially contemporary zoo exhibition techniques and their particular problem with visibility and authenticity. As the modern home for exotic animals and endangered species tries to imitate the natural environment as well as possible without letting the animal disappear, the artist examines the question of if and how one can leave the system of representation in order to have a ‘real’ experience. The Frankfurt Zoo plays a distinctive role in the development of modern zoos since Bernhard Grzimek, its well known director from 1953 until 1975, promoted the idea of ‘animal freedom’, initiated various ground-breaking ways of presenting animals and applied them in Frankfurt. The artist sees these kind of emulated spaces as test areas in the search for reality. The questions she tries to explore are whether or not things vanish when they become real and if we have to leave the idea of the display behind altogether in order to overcome the current mode of representation. As her contribution to the exhibition, Haghighian will meet the curators of Manifesta 4 at the Frankfurt Zoo a month before the opening to discuss her research and show them the architecture of display. Sehgal’s work deals with the relation of artistic to economic production. His works juxtapose dance and visual art as specific artistic media. In contrast to an interdisciplinary approach, these works do not intend to dissolve disciplinary borders, but rather to expose their specificity. While most visual art proposes a form of production that emphasises characteristics such as the transformation of material, an orientation towards eternity and an economics of growth, choreographic production is based on a transformation of acts, an orientation towards the present and a simultaneity of production and reproduction. The artist is currently working on a series of museum pieces in which a choreography is presented during the entire opening hours of the museum. His piece THIS IS GOOD (2001) is a choreography for museum guards that runs continuously throughout the duration of the exhibition.

(Jens Hoffmann)