Grigori Alexandrov
Lara Almarcegui
Leonid Amalrik
Dmitri Babichenko
Vladimir Polkovnikov
Carlos Amorales
Roger Anthoine
Alexander Apostol
The Ashington Group
Bernd Becher and Hilla
Beehive Design Collective
Olivier Bevierre
Rossella Biscotti
George Bissill
Christian Boltanski
Irma Boom
Johan Pijnappel
Bill Brandt
Marcel Broodthaers
Janet Buckle
Zdenek Burian
Edward Burtynsky
CINEMATEK [The Royal Belgian Film Archive]
Ben Cain
Duncan Campbell
Alberto Cavalcanti
Claire Fontaine
Emile Claus
Rev. Francis William Cobb
Norman Cornish
Nemanja Cvijanovic
Gilbert Daykin
Jeremy Deller
Charles Demuth
Manuel Duran
Ecomusee Bois-du-Luc
Max Ernst
Federal Police Archive
Tomaz Furlan
Kendell Geers
Goldin+Senneby
Rocco Granata
Eva Gronbach
Igor Grubic
Jan Habex
Thomas Harrison Hair
David Hammons
Tony Harrison
Nicoline van Harskamp
Josef Herman
Robert Heslop
Emre Huner
IRWIN
Dusan Mandi
Miran Mohar
Andrej Savski
Roman Uranjek
Borut Vogelnik
Joris Ivens
Henri Storck
Jota Izquierdo
Maryam Jafri
Magdalena Jitrik
Kevin Kaliski
Mikhail Karikis and Uriel Orlow
Willy Kessels
Oliver Kilbourn
Aglaia Konrad
Nicolas Kozakis
Raoul Vaneigem
Erik van Lieshout
Limburgs Museum
Richard Long
Maximilien Luce
Manuel Luque
Oswaldo Macia'
John Martin
Frans Masereel
Michael Matthys
Don McCullin
Tom McGuinness
Don McPhee
Constantin Meunier
vzw Mijn-Verleden [Mijndepot Waterschei]
Marge Monko
Henry Moore
Museum van de Mijnwerkerswoning [Museum of the Miner's House]
Arthur Munby
Haifeng Ni
Nederlands Mijnmuseum (Dutch Mine museum)
Georg Wilhelm Pabst
Keith Pattison
Henry Perlee Parker
Pierre Paulus de Chatelet
Raqs Media Collective
Jeebesh Bagchi
Monica Narula
Shuddhabrata Sengupta
William Rittase
Rijksarchief (State archive)
William Heath Robinson
Roumeliotis Family
Bea Schlingelhoff
Lina Selander
Kuai Shen
Robert Smithson
Praneet Soi
Joseph Stella
Suske & Wiske [Standaard Uitgeverij]
Graham Vivien Sutherland
Denis Thorpe
Ante Timmermans
Yan Tomaszewski
Jan Toorop
Ana Torfs
Turkish Union
Maarten Vanden Eynde
Antonio Vega Macotela
Bernar Venet
Georges Vercheval
Katleen Vermeir and Ronny Heiremans
Visible Solutions LLC
Sigrid Viir
Taaniel Raudsepp
Karel Koplimets
Paolo Woods
Cuauhtemoc Medina
Katerina Gregos
Dawn Ades
The deep of the modern. For the first time the European Biennial of Contemporary Art will also display the rich mining heritage in a surprising and innovative way to both local and international audiences. Curators developed the concept for Manifesta 9 addressing the social and societal impact of the recent past in Limburg. The exhibition 'The Deep of the Modern' will be presented as a triptych: 35 international contemporary artists are invited to create new work, the historical section provides an overview of works from the 19th and 20th centuries, the third section focuses on the extensive legacy that the Limburg mining industry has left behind.
Curated by Cuauhtemoc Medina, Katerina Gregos and Dawn Ades
MANIFESTA: AN INTRODUCTION
Manifesta, the European Biennial of Contemporary Art, is the only nomadic
contemporary art biennial, showcasing the most innovative work by artists and
curators from Europe and beyond.
Manifesta changes its location every two years in response to a variety of social,
political and geographical considerations. Since 1996, it has been held in Rotterdam,
Luxembourg, Ljubljana, Frankfurt, Donostia-San Sebastián, Nicosia (cancelled),
Trentino-Alto Adige and the Region of Murcia.
Opening in Belgium on June 2, 2012 and running until September 30,
2012, Manifesta 9 will be taking place in the former coalmining complex of
Waterschei in Genk, Limburg, Belgium.
Since its first edition 15 years ago, Manifesta has been concerned with the idea of
breaking down barriers, crossing borders and building bridges. Incorporating
exhibitions, performances, multi-media experiments and broadcasts, Manifesta 9
highlights the very best of creative thought, research and experimentation, involving
individual artists and artistic communities from diverse backgrounds from all around
the world.
MANIFESTA 9 CURATORIAL CONCEPT:
THE DEEP OF THE MODERN
The Deep of the Modern intends to create a complex dialogue between different
layers of art and history. Its point of departure is the significance of the former
coalmining region of Belgian Campine as a locus of industrial capitalism’s imaginary
and ecology. The remains of the Waterschei mine in Genk, Limburg, which comprise
the main venue of Manifesta 9, are not the only protagonists in this story. The Deep
of the Modern was perhaps most inspired by the overall geographical-ecological
“mining machine” that transformed the region over the course of the 20th century,
giving rise to a complex landscape of garden cities, landscape planning, canals, roads
and railroads.
The Deep of the Modern will develop as a dialogue between three different
sections:
Poetics of Restructuring. This section consists of contributions from 39
contemporary artists, focusing on aesthetic responses to the worldwide “economic
restructuring” of the productive system in the early 21st century, and developments
in industrialism, post-industrialism and global capitalism. The selected works will
interact as directly as possible with the current state of ruin of the building and its
immediate surroundings. The curatorial team has worked to create a balance
between time-based works, installations, and other artistic media, and to provide a
geographically and gender diverse representation of contemporary artistic practice
today.
The Age of Coal. An art historical exhibition comprising artworks from 1800 to the
early 21st century about the history of art production aesthetically related to the
industrial era. This essay on a new kind of Material Art History is organized into
several thematic sections with artworks in which coal played an important role. Coal
as the main fuel of industry, as a major factor of environmental change, as a fossil
with significant consequences in the field of natural science, as the main referent of
certain forms of working class culture and as a material symbolic of the experience of
modern life. In short, The Age of Coal examines how coal affected and defined
artistic production.
17 Tons. In addition to the two sections dedicated to art, Manifesta 9 will include a
new element: an exploration of the cultural production that has been powered by the
energy of memory that runs through the diverse heirs of coal mining in the Campine
region of Limburg, as well as several other industrial regions in Europe. This section
is the product of a collaboration between individuals and institutions who, coming
from disparate disciplines and practicing different social forms of agency, continue to
activate the collective memory and the preservation of both the material and
immaterial heritage of coalmining. The title of the show refers simultaneously to the
most famous song of coal miners around the world (16 Tons, recorded in 1946 by
Merle Travis) and to the title of one of Marcel Duchamp's most famous installations
(Sixteen Miles of String, 1942). The discrepancy between 16 and 17 is meant to
suggest the need to take a step beyond the current stage of the coal industry's
memory claims.
Although the exhibition is divided into different sections – all brought together in this
single building in Waterschei – there are thematic, poetic, and methodological
affinities that interlace the works of all three of its sections. The selection and
organization of the exhibition aim to create resonances between the different levels
and elements of the show across different times, genres and positions within the
building. We hope that the contemporary artworks will provide novel insights into the
art historical objects and heritage practices represented, and vice versa. In that
sense The Deep of the Modern places its trust in the power of the exhibition and in
the audience's ability to make sense of the three exhibits by comparing and working
through different elements of cultural production.
Manifesta 9 proposes to redirect the course of Manifesta toward an advocacy of art
production and historical knowledge as loci of aesthetic and social reflexivity and
intergenerational responsibility. In that sense, the exhibition reflects the complex
mediation of artworks, images, historical information and cultural institutions in the
production of modern and post-industrial ways of thinking. The three sections
attempt to explore the ways that art and culture are immanent to the social
processes that both record and transform the outlook of specific social formations.
MANIFESTA 9: THE CURATORIAL TEAM
Head of the Curatorial Department is the Mexican curator Cuauhtémoc Medina.
Cuauhtémoc Medina is critic, curator and art
historian, holds a PHD in History and Theory of Art
(PhD) from the University of Essex, UK and a degree in
History from Universidad Autónoma de México. He is a
research fellow at Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas
of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
Medina was the first Associate Curator of Latin
American Art in the collections of Tate Modern and
curated events and exhibitions like When Faith moves
Mountains with Francis Alÿs (Lima, Peru, 2001), The
Age of Discrepancies. Art and Visual Culture in Mexico
1968-1997 (co-curated with O. Debroise, P. García & A. Vazquez, 2007-2008). In
2009 he curated What else could we talk about?, the project by Teresa Margolles
presented at the Mexican Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. In 2010 he organised
Dominó Caníbal, for PAC Murcia, Spain.
The other members of the curatorial team of Manifesta 9 are associate curators
Katerina Gregos and Dawn Ades.
Katerina Gregos (born in Athens, Greece; based in
Brussels, Belgium) is an art historian, curator and
writer. She is currently curator of Newtopia: The State
of Human Rights, Mechelen, Belgium. In 2011 she
curated the Danish Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale,
with Speech Matters, an international group exhibition
on freedom of speech. That year she was also co-
curator of the 4th Fotofestival Mannheim Ludwigshafen
in Germany. In 2006/2007 she was the artistic director
of Argos – Centre for Art & Media in Brussels and prior
to that she was the founding director of the Deste
Foundation – Centre for Contemporary Art, Athens. As an independent curator
Gregos has also curated numerous international exhibitions including Hidden in
Remembrance is the Silent Memory of Our Future, Contour 2009 - The 4th Biennial
for Moving Image, in Mechelen, Belgium (2009); Give(a)way: on Generosity, Giving,
Sharing and Social Exchange, the 6th Biennial E V+ A: Exhibition of Visual Art,
Limerick, Ireland (2006). Katerina Gregos regularly publishes on art and artists in
magazines, books and exhibition catalogues, and is a frequent speaker in
international conferences, biennials and museums worldwide. She is also a visiting
lecturer at HISK – The Higher Institute of Arts, Antwerp.
Dawn Ades is a fellow of the British Academy, a
former trustee of Tate and was awarded an OBE in
2002 for her services to art history. She has been
responsible for some of the most important exhibitions
in London and overseas over the past thirty years,
including Dada and Surrealism Reviewed (1978), Art in
Latin America (1989) and Undercover Surrealism
(2006). Dawn Ades has a remarkably wide knowledge
of the social and poetic dynamics of modernism and the
avant-garde both in Europe and the Americas.
MANIFESTA 9: THE INITIATORS AND PARTNERS
Manifesta 9 is an initiative of the Manifesta Foundation, based in Amsterdam since
1997, and the Region of Limburg. The team of Manifesta 9 is composed of
international experts from former Manifesta biennials working with their colleagues
from Genk and the Region of Limburg.
Manifesta 9 is generously supported by the City of Genk and a vast number of local,
regional, national and international partners and stake-holders. In 2008, Manifesta
was appointed Ambassador of Visual Arts of the European Commission, which was
renewed in 2011.
Artist List
Historical + Contemporary + Heritage Section:
Grigori Alexandrov, Lara Almarcegui, Leonid Amalrik, Dmitri Babichenko & Vladimir Polkovnikov, Carlos Amorales, Roger Anthoine, Alexander Apóstol, The Ashington Group, Bernd Becher and Hilla, Beehive Design Collective, Olivier Bevierre, Rossella Biscotti, George Bissill, Christian Boltanski, Irma Boom & Johan Pijnappel, Bill Brandt, Marcel Broodthaers, Janet Buckle, Zdeněk Burian, Edward Burtynsky, CINEMATEK [The Royal Belgian Film Archive], Ben Cain, Duncan Campbell, Alberto Cavalcanti, Claire Fontaine, Emile Claus, Rev. Francis William Cobb, Norman Cornish, Nemanja Cvijanović, Gilbert Daykin, Jeremy Deller, Charles Demuth, Manuel Durán, Ecomusée Bois-du-Luc, Max Ernst, Federal Police Archive, Tomaž Furlan, Kendell Geers, Goldin+Senneby, Rocco Granata, Eva Gronbach, Igor Grubic, Jan Habex, Thomas Harrison Hair, David Hammons, Tony Harrison, Nicoline van Harskamp, Josef Herman, Robert Heslop, Emre Hüner, IRWIN (Dušan Mandi, Miran Mohar, Andrej Savski, Roman Uranjek, Borut Vogelnik), Joris Ivens and Henri Storck, Jota Izquierdo, Maryam Jafri, Magdalena Jitrik, Kevin Kaliski, Mikhail Karikis and Uriel Orlow, Willy Kessels, Oliver Kilbourn, Aglaia Konrad, Nicolas Kozakis and Raoul Vaneigem, Erik van Lieshout, Limburgs Museum, Richard Long, Maximilien Luce, Manuel Luque, Oswaldo Maciá, John Martin, Frans Masereel, Michael Matthys, Don McCullin, Tom McGuinness, Don McPhee, Constantin Meunier, vzw Mijn-Verleden [Mijndepot Waterschei], Marge Monko, Henry Moore, Museum van de Mijnwerkerswoning [Museum of the Miner's House], Arthur Munby, Haifeng Ni, Nederlands Mijnmuseum (Dutch Mine museum), Georg Wilhelm Pabst, Keith Pattison, Henry Perlee Parker, Pierre Paulus de Châtelet, Raqs Media Collective (Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula, Shuddhabrata Sengupta), William Rittase, Rijksarchief (State archive), William Heath Robinson, Roumeliotis Family, Bea Schlingelhoff, Lina Selander, Kuai Shen, Robert Smithson, Praneet Soi, Joseph Stella, Suske & Wiske [Standaard Uitgeverij], Graham Vivien Sutherland, Denis Thorpe, Ante Timmermans, Yan Tomaszewski, Jan Toorop, Ana Torfs, Turkish Union, Maarten Vanden Eynde, Antonio Vega Macotela, Bernar Venet, Georges Vercheval, Katleen Vermeir and Ronny Heiremans, Visible Solutions LLC (Sigrid Viir, Taaniel Raudsepp, Karel Koplimets), Paolo Woods
Image: Burtynsky, Edward, China, Manufacturing, 2005. Selection of eight photographs, variable dimensions. Copyright: the artist. Supported by: Galeria Toni Tàpies, Barcelona. Courtesy: Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto, Stefan Röpke Gallery, Köln.
Contact
Manifesta 9 office
Dennenstraat 5 - 3600 Genk -
Belgium
Phone: +32 (0)89 710 440
E-mail: m9@manifesta.org
For press information please contact:
Phone: +32 (0)89 710 440
E-mail: pressm9@manifesta.org
For information about guided tours and workshops please contact:
Phone: +32 (0)89 710 440
E-mail: mediation@manifesta.org
Manifesta Foundation office
Prinsengracht 175hs
1015DS Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Phone: +31(0)20 672 1435
E-mail: secretariat@manifesta.org
The press preview days of Manifesta 9 will take place on May 31 and June 1, 2012
Mining Building and Mining Site of Waterschei
Andre' Dumontlaan - Genk
Mondays: Closed
Tuesdays - Sundays: 10h00 - 19h00
Friday: 10h00 - 22h00
Special opening hours are always negotiable for groups.
One-day ticket full 10 euro, reduced 6
Two-day ticket full 15 euro, reduced 10
Evening ticket (every Fri from 19:00 - 22:00) 6 euro
M9-friends summer ticket euro 30