Manifesto @ ACMI

With 13 screens, a dozen characters played by Cate Blanchett and over a century of artist’s manifestos Julian Rosefeldt’s Manifesto at ACMI is overblown. It sounds very impressive, at first glance it looks spectacular but in the end the advertising was better than the exhibition.

Posters for Manifesto

The advertising campaign featured a juxtaposition of some words about art and the face of Cate Blanchett made-up to play a role side by side in posters. In the urban environment the posters were intriguing, especially as there was almost no information on the two posters about who wrote the words and what was being advertised. The information about the exhibition on the poster was impossible to read as you passed by, you had to make an effort to read it.

The actual exhibition on close examination was unfortunately incoherent. The various manifestos are cut up, recombined, and re-written into scenarios making them into so many words. The elaborately scenarios did not contribute to any complimentary, ironic or contrasting meaning, that the manifestos might have had. Conceptualism set in a news studio and pop art around a traditional family dinner table.

Due the position of screens and speakers the manifesto’s would suddenly pile up as Blanchett and another Blanchett from another screen would both launch into different speeches. This possibly synchronised cacophony drains meaning from the vocalisation.

It could have been insightful rather than simply impressive and overblown. It seems like faced with so many manifesto’s Rosefeldt responded to a lack of any meaningful insight by emptying the meaning from the manifestos.

Rosefeldt’s three other videos on exhibition at ACMI are impressive, witty and coherent works. The dual realities of the actions and the foley sounds in The Soundmaker are fascinating, as are the dual realities of Stunned Man. Dali and Buñuel could only have dreamt of Rosefeldt’s Deep Gold which a credible and worthy addition to their L’Âge d’Or. Here Rosefeldt’s talent for designing complex camera tracks over tableaux is used both visually and intellectually to great effect.

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