Manifesta 4 - European Biennal Festival of Contemporary Art
The "Manifesta - European Biennial Festival of Contemporary Art" came into being following the political changes in Europe at the beginning of the 1990s.
Halil Altindere: Walk 3, 1999 Photo Performance, Photo: Serkan Ozkaya, Istanbul
The aim was to initiate a dialogue across borders between young artists and the respective public in Europe and create a forum for new and innovative forms of contemporary art. The focus is on Europe as a whole with its cultural diversity. For each biennial festival a changing team of independent curators develop a new concept, which tries to promote a direct dialogue between the cultural and art situation of the respective host town and the general development trends in the international contemporary art. Since 1996, the Manifesta Biennial has taken place in changing countries and cities within Europe. The launch in Rotterdam was followed by Luxembourg in 1998 and Ljubljana in 2000. To date, a total of about two hundred artists from 46 European countries have participated in Manifesta.
Yael Bartana: Still from the Video "Trembling Time", 2001
The City of Frankfurt/Main is the host for the European Biennial of Contemporary Art, MANIFESTA 4. From May until the end of August, 2002, artists and artist groups living and working in Europe, the curators, the organizstional team and the City of Frankfurt are reinforcing each other in order to create a dialogue, a flux among themselves stressing the different realities of individuals and the way people work together and approach different situations. The MANIFESTA 4 project has developed through a long process of collaboration among three curators: Iara Boubnova, Founding Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Sofia, Nuria Enguita Mayo, Chief Curator at Fundació Tàpies in Barcelona, and Stéphanie Moisdon Trembley, independent curator and cofounder of bdv (bureau des videos), Paris with the close support of many institutions and individuals in Frankfurt and all over Europe.
Jasper van den Brink:"Oranges", 2002
The MANIFESTA 4 project will include permanent displays of works in the exhibition venues, a video-landscape room, experimental project presentations, broadcasting projects in collaboration with radio and tv, performances, video programs and a permanent discussion forum on the web. Projects in the urban domain will supplement the various exhibition venues in various parts of the city topography. As like any other work under construction, MANIFESTA 4 will need the active participation of visitors to be completed and come alive.
Project framework: 25th May - 25th August 2002
Project venue: Frankfurt am Main
Project partner: Künstlerhaus Mousonturm
