Manifesta without a manifesto? Artistic statements in times of political turbulence

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper seeks to explore the evolving form of art manifestos in the contemporary cultural economy by bringing perspectives of those cultural producers who cannot speak up in the conventional form of a manifesto. I examine this issue by using the case of European Biennial Manifesta 10, held in Saint Petersburg in 2014. As the organisers of Manifesta 10 confessed publicly, the political conditions for bringing Manifesta to Russia could not be worse. The recent approval of the anti-gay law and the midst of the Ukrainian crisis including the annexation of Crimea put the Biennale into a very vulnerable position. Despite severe calls for boycott, Manifesta opened for the public view with no theme or a clear statement. Although Manifesta 10 did not produce a single declaration that could be clearly identified as a manifesto, König and the Biennale team made a series of alternative tactical visual and written statements for different audiences. By using the author's interpretation, the following paper aims to reconstruct this fragmented polyphonic manifesto produced by cultural workers, artists and visitors of the 2014 Manifesta Biennale.