Manifesta III (review)

MANIFESTA III In it s t hird i ncar nat i on, t he nomadic European bi enni al Manifest o t ook place in t he former 'East '. It opened in Lj ublj ana, Slovenia, a cit y East ern Europeans considered t heir 'West '. The t it le: Borderline Syndrome, Energies of Defense. It s press conference had barely began when Russian art anarchist Alexander Brener mat erialized behind t he speakers' backs. He sprayed a slogan on t he proj ect ion screen, "Demol ish Neo-liberaList mult icult uralist Art -Sist em (sic) Now! " Then t oppl ing t he flower arrangement s, he scrawled "Forget Europa Forever!" across t he long t able while his female accomplice f lung manif est os int o t he air. But when he muffled t he mike, he lost audience sympat hy. A scuffle ensued, t he t able collapsed and t wo rebels spent t he night in j ail. Borderline syndrome, indeed. The exhi bi t i on it self , spread t hrough t hree museums, one cult ural cent er and several public spaces, is not nearly as dramat ic Manifest o 3's four cur at or s—Ol e Bouman, Francesco Bonami, Maria Hlavaj ova and Kat hrin Rhomber g— have creat ed a low key event f ocused on t he art of quiet gest ures: smart , t hought f ul , oft en pol it icized, occasional l y overwhelming . Their premise refers t o ment al borders, defense mechanisms , and t he concept of "borderline personalit y, " as well as t o issues of t errit ory. They pose t he quest ion: "Where do we draw t he l i ne?" Eschewing spect acular gest ure or megalomaniac inst allat ion, t his biennial favors works t hat creep up quiet ly, such as Abdel Abdossemed's smal l birt h announcement of a new Trinit yMohammed Karl Pol Pot , alone in a room; Anat ol y Osmol ovsky's art illery gun aimed int o manhole; or Francisco Tropa's live Snail. Despit e t he disagreement s among t he curat ors, and some complaint s from some East ern Europeans t hat t he art ist s, t hough most ly new and unknown in t he west , are not new enough, t he exhibit ion (which cont inues t hrough Sept ember 24) is coherent and edgy. Much of t he best work deals wit h borders and borderlessness wit h a do-it -yourself init iat ive. Swedi sh/ Danish gay duo Micheal Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset inst all one of t heir 'powerless st r uct ur es'—Lj ubl j ana's first commercial gallery for local ar t i st s—w i t hi n t he museum room where Moscow art ist Ant on Ol shvang's bl owups anonymous rej ect ed snapshot s hang. De Geuzen, a t hree women Dut ch t eam, offers a whole archive about cyber-cult ure and t he st at eless market on a camouf lage carpet . The Rome-based group St alker's Transborderline t unnel is st rewn wit h migrat ory soccer balls. A pair of art ist s from Greece and Macedonia unit es Macedonian apples and Greek oranges, free for t he t aking on a market st and: t heir less innocuous medley of nat ionalist ic songs plays on a st airway. A Bulgarian art ist set borrowed pot s on elect ric burners, freeing t he wat er wit hin t hem as migrant st ream. If works like t hese offer met aphors of t he new Europe's crucial problems-expansion, cont ract ion, exclusion, immigrat ion, ot hers, such as Slovakian art ist Roman Ondak's second-hand images of t ourist sit es, are about different sort s of borderline mobilit y. Jo Ost Conij in's video film shows how wit h no prior aeronaut ical knowledge, he built an airplane and made it fly. Veil Grano's A St range Message From Anot her St ar recalls...