Manifesta 3: Diagnosing Europe. - Review - book review

In the third edition of this "alternative" biennial, postcommunist Europe was likened to a patient whose symptoms include a weakened conscious subject and atomized identity.

through every part of its brief history, Manifesta has stood as an alternative forum for the presentation of contemporary European art. alerted by the remapping of Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall, this Dutch initiative, drawn up in November 1993 search fors to integrate artists from the former communist countries, collectively known as "the East," more entirely into the international art world. Remaining unclose and flexible to the diverse emergencys of postmodern art practice is also part of its mission, thus the nomadic nature of this biennial exhibition, which has previously been sited in Rotterdam (1996) and Luxembourg City (1998) The third edition of the present to view took place this summer in Ljubljana, the picturesque capital of Slovenia.

Manifesta 3 cocurated by means of Francesco Bonami, Ole Bouman, Maria Hlavajova and Kathrin Rhomberg, center upon the theme of geopolitical and psychological borders as insinuateed by its title, "Borderline Syndrome: Energies of Defence" Otto F Kernberg's theories of borderline personality disorder formed the conceptual basis of the exhibition and were used as a metaphor for the transformative processe publicly under way in Europe. According to Kernberg, the borderline control suffers from a weak me and diffusion of identity.(1) Fractured and narcissistic, he or she is unable to empathize with "Others," who are perceived as either threats or ideal beings.

Within this adjoining matter Ljubljana seemed an appropriate choice for Manifesta 3 The Slovenian capital is, after all, the abode of Lacanian theorist Slavoj Zizek, whose lucid contribution to the exhibition catalogue describes borderline syndrome in terminuss of hysteria, a "pathological disintegration of the personality."(2) A small on the other hand cosmopolitan country in Central Europe Slovenia is bordered through Italy, Austria, Hungary and Croatia, as well as through the Alps and the Adriatic Sea. Winning its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991 after alone 10 days of fighting, Slovenia for the greatest in quantity part avoided the larger Balkan conflicts and has since take pleasure ined enough political stability and economic prosperity to make early access into the European Union a athletic possibility. Under Tito, the Slovene Republic had more freedom and autonomy than many East Bloc countries and was able to distance itself from Soviet domination while establishing economic relations with the West. Meanwhile, the economic decline experienceed by the rest of Yugoslavia after the death of Tito in 1980 and the fall of communism in 1989 gave rise to the utmost nationalism and interethnic conflicts that still plague the region today.

The horror of the Balkan conflicts notwithstanding, Manifesta 3 did itself no favors by dint of imposing on European culture a curatorial thesis whose primary metaphors are disease and psychosis. No doubt the type of borderline syndrome was chosen in an effort to avoid dividing the continent into the usual East and West bloc from one extremity to the other of the exhibition, geographic definitions of Europe remained vague, as did the criteria for inclusion in the exhibit Sidestepping these issues, the curators tried instead to at hand Europe as an amorphous mental state with multiple personalities and selfs more a syndrome than a geographical entity. Nevertheless, greatest in quantity of the works in the exhibit took geopolitical conflict and territorial borders--not clinical neurosis--as their points of departure in addressing of the like kind subjects as immigration, displacement, post-Soviet colonialism, European unification, the siege of Sarajevo and the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo

The general lack of biographical and didactic information within the exhibition collection of vapored these issues further. An effort was made (in the catalogue and upon the Web site) to deemphasize nationality by dint of identifying the 59 exhibiting artists and collaboratives according to popular residence rather than by place of origin. smooth so, some works and artists strike one as beinged terribly out of place, like as Your Nigger Talking (1999) by the agency of Amit Goren of Israel--a dual-image video documentary about an illegal alien from Ghana who, without of his home in a Tel Aviv ghetto, step quicklys a school for the young children of foreign workers. The rationale for including works from outside Europe was at no time clear, even though some of the greatest in quantity interesting work fell into this territory. of the like kind was the case, for example, with the video essay Performing the Border (1999) through Zurich-based Ursula Biemann, which documents the economic and social impact of the U.S.-Mexican border on women living in Ciudad Juarez. Similarly on the outside of place (but visually lush) was the film Vacancy (1999) by dint of German Matthias Muller, a haunting portrait of the failed utopian city Brasilia that masterfully intersplices documentary footage and atmospheric artist-generated images.

Likewise, the absence of artists from, for example, Spain, where Basque separatists continue to fight for independence, as well as from of the like kind Central and East European countries as Hungary, the Czech Republic, Ukraine and Romania, readyed thorny questions regarding the politics of representation. In their defense the curators were clear in stating that Manifesta, unlike the Venice Biennale, is not intended as a country-by-country observe of European art. A lock opener factor in the selection process--and a big plus for the exhibition--was the curators' determination to avoid overly familiar names in favor of artists with limited exposing in the international arena.