Curated by Kasper König
For its tenth edition, the Manifesta Foundation will settle its itinerant biennial at the edge of a former empire, in one of the world’s oldest museums: the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg. Once touted as a “window to Europe,” Russia’s second city has recently drawn its shades, as domestic politics—notably, the criminalization of “homosexual propaganda”—have sparked international protests. Mindful of this context,König will address questions of the body, drawing on the museum’s treasured Matisse collection (which includes The Dance, 1909–10) to develop a politically nuanced exhibition of more than fifty artists—from Francis Alÿs, Joseph Beuys, Nicole Eisenman, Maria Lassnig, and Pavel Pepperstein to gender-bending pioneers from the perestroika era such as Timur Novikov and Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe. The catalogue will feature essays by Ekaterina Andreeva, Ekaterina Degot, Helmut Draxler, and Silvia Eiblmayr.
