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horror øi sci-fi al filmelor-distopii, ultima piesæ a genului, Children of Men [Copii ai
oamenilor], se terminæ cu speranfla unui nou început. Manifesta îøi asumæ mai mult
decît atît: ea e pentru supraviefluire øi cautæ locul artei în lumea nouæ, conøtientæ
cæ ea nu poate avea vreun loc færæ sæ ne amintim de trecut, færæ iluzii mærefle øi pierderi
reale. Lamentaflia øi doliul ascund forfle pozitive, care ajutæ prelucrarea trecutului øi
uitarea, respectiv concentrarea de noi energii, care este o fazæ necesaræ cætre un
nou pas, cætre supraviefluire. În lumea postpoliticului, Manifesta a propus principiul
speranflei împotriva aceluia al Distopiei.
Traducere de Alexandru Polgár
Note:
1. Expresia e utilizatæ de Adam Budak în descrierea concepfliei sale curatoriale, vezi:
http://www.manifesta7.it/locations/show/
2. Roee Rosen, „Confessions: A Conversation with Vi Pitchon“, in Manifesta 7 Companion, Milano, SilvanaEditorale,
2008, pp. 220–224.
3. Adam Budak, „Venturing Beyond“, in Manifesta 7 Companion, p. 272.
4. T. J. Demos, „Europe of Camps“, in Manifesta 7 Companion, pp. 385–391.
5. Dario Gamboni, The Destruction of Art: Iconoclasm and Vandalism Since the French Revolution, London,
Reaction Books, 2007, p. 27.
6. Vezi Adam Budak, „Venturing Beyond“, pp. 270–274.
gotten stuck up there. And this is only because she simply had no
time to die while busily gathering in the apples. In time, the village
officials come asking her to let death get down of the tree, to let it
work, because everything’s upside down without it. Beating the fear
of death is a daily practice, respectively the taming and the acceptance
of death, which is a part of life.
Manifesta dreams; one of its guiding lines is (following Ernst Bloch)
the principle of hope. 6 If the preceding era was ruled by theory, by
intellectualism and verbalism in art, Manifesta announces a shift to
the mental sphere, towards the imaginary, towards perception and
the visual. It does not imply the lack of thought, a lack of desire to
communicate or to take a stand towards things in the world. In fact,
the works don’t have any other object except these; but the means,
the forms of manifestation and the goals have changed. If political
and artistic resistance also seems to disappear, this only applies to
the direct effort. Among the works that not only document chaos,
a somber life feeling or the apocalyptic climate, but also want to
actively interfere with these, trying to find a “handhold“ onto a
changed world, the most moving are Guido van de Werve’s video
works. These are poetical expressions of hope itself, without the
touch of sentimentality. In Everything is Going to be Alright (2007),
on an infinite ice field, a man steps towards nothing, followed by
an ice-breaker; in The Day I didn’t Turn with the World (2007), the
artists goes against Earth’s moving rotation for twenty four hours,
like a testimony of the soul’s power and the enormous force of human
will, with its endless potential. It makes no difference that one cannot
see the practical utility of such actions. Or it does so only insofar
as history has buried beneath itself modernity’s belief in functionality
and rationality, and precisely this becomes palpable in Manifesta.
The project of the Romanian artist Daniel Knorr is privileged, but
compared to the artists producing luxury objects, he makes visible
a contemporary domain and strategy of the art aiming to an active
and participatory social presence. After legal battles, for the entire
duration of Manifesta the Ex-Peterlini building became a twentyfour-hour
open public space.
The feeling underlying Manifesta is that the world is going through
difficult times, as they say in one of the movies showed at Ex-Peterlini.
Opposing the horror and sci-fi trend of the dystopian movies, the
last piece of the genre, Children of Men, ends with the hope of
a new beginning. Manifesta takes on more than that: it militates for
survival and looks for art’s place in the new world, aware of the fact
that it can’t have a place without remembering the past, without
great illusions and without real losses. Lamentation and mourning
conceal positive forces that help to work through the past, to forget,
and to gather new strength, which is the necessary phase to a new
step forward towards survival. In the world of the post-political,
Manifesta proposes the principle of hope against that of Dystopia.
Translated by Alex Moldovan
Notes:
1. The expression is used by Adam Budak in describing his curatorial conception,
see: http://www.manifesta7.it/locations/show/
2. Roee Rosen, “Confessions: A Conversation with Vi Pitchon“, in Manifesta
7 Companion, Milan, SilvanaEditorale, 2008, pp. 220–224.
3. Adam Budak, “Venturing Beyond“, in Manifesta 7 Companion, p. 272.
Guido van der Werve
Nummer acht – Everything is going to be alright, 16 mm to HD, 2007,
Roofvogel 2007 © Guido van der Werve, photo: Ben Geraerts
4. T. J. Demos, “Europe of Camps“, in Manifesta 7 Companion, pp. 385–391.
5. Dario Gamboni, The Destruction of Art: Iconoclasm and Vandalism Since
the French Revolution, London, Reaction Books, 2007, p. 27.
6. See Adam Budak, “Venturing Beyond“, pp. 270–274.
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