JULIAN ROSEFELDT’S MANIFESTO

Cate Blanchett dramatizes more than 50 Artist Manifestos in a 13-Screen Film Installation, reimagined for Armory’s Drill Hall

Park Avenue Armory will mount the North American premiere of Manifesto tomorrow – a work by Julian Rosefeldt that stars Academy Award-winner Cate Blanchett. Inspired by the tradition of artist manifestos, Manifesto is a collage of artistic declarations of the 20th century, reinterpreted as poetic monologues that provoke timeless questions about the artist’s role in society. Rosefeldt will adapt the installation in a site-specific presentation for the Armory’s Wade Thompson Drill Hall, where it will be on view December 7, 2016 – January 8, 2017.

The 13 scenes that comprise Manifesto draw on more than 50 milestones of artist manifestos

from the past century, woven together into dramatic soliloquies that highlight specific movements or schools of thought. The texts are brought to life by Blanchett, who creates 13 different roles in a kaleidoscopic series of characterizations ranging from a funeral orator to a TV anchor woman to a corporate CEO, to a homeless man. Presented simultaneously on adjacent screens, the text and images blend together into a highly theatrical cinematic installation that recaptures the defiant spirit of its source material for a contemporary audience.

“As an institution dedicated to pushing the boundaries of artistic convention, the Armory is an ideal setting for a work like Manifesto that takes up artistic iconoclasm as its very subject,” said Rebecca Robertson, President and Executive Producer of Park Avenue Armory. “We are thrilled to be working with Julian Rosefeldt on an immersive installation of this daring work, and to offer our audiences the opportunity to experience Cate Blanchett’s astonishingly diverse and affecting performances.”

“Manifesto is a singular work of creative vision, which furthers the Armory’s tradition of mounting multidisciplinary projects that defy categorization,” said Pierre Audi, Artistic Director of Park Avenue Armory. “We are pleased to bring this soaring tribute to the artist manifesto, the result of an ambitious collaboration between two world-class artists, to our majestic drill hall in a site-specific installation.”

Though manifestos are most commonly associated with political movements, the 20th century saw the appropriation of the form in an artistic context, beginning with Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s “Futurist Manifesto” in 1909. The texts quoted in Manifesto survey major artistic revolutions of the past 100 years, from influential movements like Dadaism, Surrealism, and Minimalism to insurgent artist collectives like The Blue Rider. By reconstituting historical manifestos by a mostly male authorship as monologues delivered by a female performer in contemporary settings, Rosefeldt invites viewers to consider the gendered, social, and political contexts that shape artistic disruption.

An artist and filmmaker whose work often explores the boundaries of historical and artistic representation, Rosefeldt has described Manifesto as an homage to the artist manifesto as a literary form. The installation’s textual collage quotes some of the most notable artists and theorists of the past century at very early stages in their careers, including Tristan Tzara, Kazimir Malevich, André Breton, Claes Oldenburg, Yvonne Rainer, Sturtevant, Sol LeWitt, Jim Jarmusch, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, and many others. In a nod to the political origins of the manifesto tradition, Manifesto also includes a “Prologue” segment, in which Blanchett’s voice recites words by Tristan Tzara and the first line from Marx’s and Engels’ “Manifesto of the Communist Party” set against the metaphorically charged image of a burning fuse.

Julian Rosefeldt is a German film and video artist who lives and works in Berlin. Since 2001 he has held a professorship for Digital and Time-based Media at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. Showing extensively in museums and film festivals worldwide, his work is included into renowned collections such as Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin; Saatchi Collection, London; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Rosefeldt’s film works possess a complex visual quality. The viewer is immersed in lavishly staged sets, which are projected in cinematographic style onto several screens. Caught in a continuous loop, his protagonists often follow a Sisyphean task, moving in heavy rhythms, matched by the action of the camera gliding slowly forwards and backwards. Rosefeldt treats everyday rituals and clichés analytically and ironically, subverting them by shifting the action into the absurd.

Manifesto received its world premiere in December 2015 at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Melbourne, which co-commissioned the work with Nationalgalerie Berlin, Art Gallery of New South Wales Sydney, Sprengel Museum Hannover, and Ruhrtriennale Festival of the Arts. The work was further generously supported by Bayerischer Rundfunk, Medienboard Berlin Brandenburg, and Burger Collection Hong Kong.

Part palace, part industrial shed, Park Avenue Armory fills a critical void in the cultural ecology of New York by enabling artists to create, students to explore, and audiences to experience unconventional work that cannot be mounted in traditional performance halls and museums. With its soaring 55,000-square-foot Wade Thompson Drill Hall—reminiscent of 19th-century European train stations—and an array of exuberant period rooms, the Armory offers a platform for creativity across all art forms. Together, these and other spaces within the historic building utilized for arts programming comprise the Thompson Arts Center, named in recognition of the Thompson family’s ongoing support of the institution.

Since its first production in September 2007, the Armory has organized and commissioned immersive performances, installations, and cross-disciplinary collaborations in its vast drill hall that defy traditional categorization and challenge artists to push the boundaries of their practice. The Armory also presents small-scale performances and programs in its historic period rooms, including its acclaimed recital series, which showcases musical talent from across the globe within the intimate salon setting of the Board of Officers Room; and the new Artists Studio series in the newly restored Veterans Room, which features innovative artists and artistic pairings that harkens back to the imaginative collaboration and improvisation of the original group of designers who conceived the space. Designed by architects, Herzog & de Meuron, the $210 million revitalization of its historic building was completed in March of this year, transforming it into one of the most magnificent venues for performance, music and art.

The Armory offers robust arts education programs at no cost to underprivileged New York City public school students, engaging them with the institution’s artistic programming and the building’s history and architecture.

INSTALLATION DATES AND SCHEDULE

Manifesto is on view at Park Avenue Armory December 7, 2016 through January 8, 2017.
Monday – Wednesday: 12pm – 8pm
Thursday-Sunday: 12pm – 12am
Sunday: 12pm – 7pm
Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve: 12pm – 4pm
Closed Christmas Day
(212) 933-5812
armoryonpark.org