Acting up
A work featuring Cate Blanchett comes to Auckland Art Gallery.
Cate Blanchett provokes in Manifesto at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki
The German artist and filmmaker Julian Rosefeldt and actress Cate Blanchett met in a chance encounter in Berlin in 2010: they agreed to collaborate on a work, despite not knowing what that would be. The result is Manifesto, an electrifying 13-screen installation that examines the grand ideas of art movements and time periods through history, drawing on the writings of Futurists through to the Dadaists via the musings of artists, dancers and architects. “Good evening ladies and gentlemen,” says Blanchett in one screen, dressed as a bland but authoritative newsreader. “All current art is fake.” The twist – and the fun – comes as Blanchett inhabits multiple personas, including a school teacher, factory worker, puppeteer, newsreader and a homeless man. These characters, many of them artless, voice complex, grand statements, often in close-up on screens measuring 4.2m wide by 2.4m high. The result is lush and confronting – and also funny, ultimately questioning whether art is universal, or time specific.