Past exhibitions

In this dramatic new video installation, renowned German artist Julian Rosefeldt works with famed Australian actor Cate Blanchett to give new life to some of the most famous and provocative writings by artists of the modern era.

The work presents a series of striking monologues that Rosefeldt has created by editing and reassembling a collage of artists’ manifestos, from declarations penned by the futurists, dadaists and situationists, to the musings of individual artists, architects, dancers and filmmakers such as Sol LeWitt, Yvonne Rainer and Jim Jarmusch.

Blanchett performs these ‘new manifestos’ while inhabiting 13 different personas – among them a school teacher, a newsreader, a factory worker and a homeless man – to explore the power and urgency of these historical words in our world today.

Manifesto has been proudly commissioned by the Art Gallery of NSW and the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), with Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin and Sprengel Museum, Hannover, and Ruhrtriennale – Festival of the Arts.

The Art Gallery of NSW and ACMI would also like to thank the Verein der Freunde der Nationalgalerie, the Freunde des Sprengel Museum Hannover e.V. and the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, as well as to the co-producers, the Burger Collection Hong Kong and the Ruhrtriennale, all of whom generously supported this project. Manifesto was produced in cooperation with the Bayerischer Rundfunk. Creative campaign courtesy of ACMI.