STUTTGART.- In 2016, the Friends of the Staatsgalerie – Stuttgarter Galerieverein acquired MANIFESTO by Julian Rosefeldt. To honour this remarkable acquisition and the generosity of the donors, the Staatsgalerie is presenting the thirteenchannel video work in a spectacular installation.

Rosefeldt’s latest work is an homage to the artist’s manifesto – from Dada to Fluxus, Pop Art, Conceptual Art and Dogma 95 – and raises questions about the role of art in Modernism. Cutting and combining these historic texts, the artist created poetic collages that are spoken and embodied by Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett playing thirteen different roles. Whether as a choreographer of a dance troupe, primary school teacher, eulogist, factory worker, stock broker or as a homeless man, each of her characters brings the historic manifestos into the everyday world of the present. The phrases and demands hold their own in their new settings and prove to be surprisingly upto-date and pertinent.

In MANIFESTO, the radical nature of the texts, Rosefeldt’s imagery and Blanchett’s striking versatility converge in an orchestral harmony of overwhelming beauty and power.

MANIFESTO has been co-commissioned by the ACMI – Australian Centre for the Moving Image Melbourne, the Art Gallery of New South Wales Sydney, the Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and the Sprengel Museum Hanover. The work is co-produced by the Burger Collection Hong Kong and the Ruhrtriennale. It was realized thanks to the generous support of the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg and in cooperation with Bayerischer Rundfunk.