Study Visit Manifesta 2016

Study visit: Manifesta 2016
8–12 June 2016

Manifesta 11 Zürich – The European Biennial of Contemporary Art
"What people do for money"
(Zürich, Switzerland, 11 June 2016–18 September 2016)
Curator: Christian Jankowski
http://m11.manifesta.org/en

This biennial event, the festival of contemporary art, is held every two years in a different city. It started out in 1996 in Rotterdam (The Netherlands), and took place in Ljubljana in 2000. The next Manifesta festival is thus scheduled for 2018 in Palermo (Italy) and then in 2020 in Marseille (France), one of the partner cities of the Risk Change project.

Thursday, 9 June 2016
After the press conference at 11 a. m., we walked through the program locations and took a tour of all the central venues, visiting exhibitions at the Helmhaus, Cabaret Voltaire (Cabaret der Künstler program) and the Löwenbräukunst, which connects several institutions through the program, followed by the Kunsthalle, the Center for Contemporary Art Mignon, as well as visits to various privately owned galleries: the Parkett Publishing House Gallery, the Eva Presenhuber Gallery, and finally the Gregor Staiger Gallery.
At 7 p. m. the program started at the Pavilion of Reflections, which is intended for various presentations – we attended a pitch presentation by the Zürich School of Design – and some film screenings; for Manifesta 11, the Pavilion was built in the form of a wooden construction upon the Zürich lake.

Friday, 10 June 2016
Visiting venues and exhibitions throughout the day. Unfortunately, the directions were marked rather poorly, and the connection between individual parallel events, to which we had to arrive by means of public transportation, was problematic as well. We saw the visiting exhibition of the Paris-based art center Palais Tokyo, which was one of the invited institutions, and had several discussions with the organizers and artists. In the evening there was an opening event at the Gala University, accompanied by speeches made by those deserving, and followed by the socializing & mingling part.

Saturday, 11 June 2016
Exhibitions in Zürich (100th Anniversary of Dada):
-    Francis Picabia – retrospective (3 June – 25 September 2016), Kunsthaus Zürich
-    "I don't believe in art. I believe in artists" – Dada and surrealism
-    Permanent collection of the Kunsthaus Zürich
-    Dada Africa (18 March –17 July 2016), Rietberg Museum
-    Garten der Welt / Gardens of the World, Rietberg Museum
-    Thinking outside the box, Haus Konstruktiv Collection (1986–2016) and guest interventions, 2 June – 4 September 2016
-    Targets – photographs by Herlinde Koelbl, Museum für Gestaltung im Toni-Areal, 22 April – 18 September 2016
-    Zaha Hadid's latest project – exhibition design for Kurt Schwitters: Merz, opened at the Gmurzynska Gallery
-    Transactions – exhibition at the University of Zürich.

Manifesta (main exhibition venues):
Löwenbräukunst, Helmhaus, Cabaret Voltaire (Cabaret der Künstler program), Pavilion of Reflections.

Parallels (parallel exhibitions):
Numerous parallel events took place, out of which we chose to visit the independent institution Rote Fabrik and the nearby Shedhalle Gallery, but were unable to get there due to the lengthy ride (public transportation) and an overly packed schedule. Nonetheless, we did manage to visit several parallel events and exhibitions, among them Guillaume Bijl’s Dog Salon Bobby at the Grieder Contemporary.

Number of participating artists: over 100
Number of venues: 4 central and over 70 for parallel events in Zürich and Wintertur.

Number of visitors: by the end of the first week, more than 5.800 accredited journalists and art experts have already visited the 11th edition of Manifesta in Zürich. The number of visitors increases daily. So far, over 20.000 visitors have come to the festival, and over 2821 people contributed to the Manifesta 11 educational programs, which are an important part of the European Biennial of Contemporary Art.

Nina Jeza &
Peter Tomaž Dobrila