COURTESY FWPN
For the first time in its 20-year history, Manifesta, the roving European biennial, will be curated by an artist. That artist is the Berlin-based Christian Jankowski, whose appointment as chief curator of Manifesta 11, which will be presented in Zurich in 2016, was made official by the Manifesta Foundation today.
“Jankowski will investigate the whole array of art’s authorship, its production and its reflection on Zurich’s professional landscape,” Manifesta’s director, Hedwig Fijen, said in a statement. “In doing so, Manifesta 11’s chief curator approaches the complex identities of the city in an unexpected way, reaching out to audiences beyond the inner circle of contemporary art biennials.”
As Manifesta notes in its press release, Jankowski has a curatorial background, having run his own space, Friedensallee 12, in Hamburg in the mid-1990s. He was selected by a committee comprised of Fijen, Gijs van Tuyl, Mirjam Varadinis, Cuauhtemoc Medina, Barbara Basting, Heike Munder, Christoph Doswald and Martin Heller.
The full lineup of Manifesta curators past follows below:
– Manifesta 1, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 1996: Katalyn Neray (Budapest), Rosa Martinez (Barcelona), Viktor Misiano (Moscow), Andrew Renton (London), Hans Ulrich Obrist (Paris/Zurich)
– Manifesta 2, Luxembourg, Luxembourg, 1998: Robert Fleck (Paris/Vienna), Maria Lind (Stockholm), Barbara Vanderlinden (Brussels)
– Manifesta 3, Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2000: Francesco Bonami (Chicago, Turin), Ole Bouman (Rotterdam), Maria Hlavajová (Amsterdam, Bratislava), Kathrin Rhomberg (Vienna)
– Manifesta 4, Frankfurt, Germany, 2002: Iara Boubnova (Sofia), Nuria Enguita Mayo (Barcelona), Stephanie Moisdon – Trembley (Paris)
– Manifesta 5, Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain, 2004: Massimiliano Gioni (Milan / New York), Marta Kuzma (Kiev / New York)
– Manifesta 6, Nicosia, Cyprus, 2006 (cancelled): Mai Abu ElDahab (Cairo), Anton Vidokle (New York), Florian Waldvogel (Germany),
– Manifesta 7, Trentino-Alto Adige/ South-Tyrol, Italy, 2008: Adam Budak (Krakow/Graz), Anselm Franke (Antwerp/Berlin), Hila Peleg (Berlin), Raqs Media Collective (New Dehli)
– Manifesta 8, Murcia and Cartagena, Spain, 2010: Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum (ACAF), Chamber of Public Secrets (CPS), tranzit (dot) org
– Manifesta 9, Genk, Limburg, Belgium, 2012: Cuauhtémoc Medina (Mexico), Katerina Gregos (Greece/Belgium) Dawn Ades (UK)
– Manifesta 10, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation, 2014: Kasper König (Germany)