German artist Julian Rosefeldt produced Manifesto in 2015. This thirteen-channel immersive video installation stands as a tribute to the tradition and literary beauty of artist manifestos. The artwork/event, which lies at the crossroads between film, performance and installation, gives the MAC’s audiences an opportunity to personally experience a work that has created a sensation wherever it has been shown.

Each of the thirteen screens in Manifesto presents the same actor (Cate Blanchett) taking on various roles: schoolteacher, homeless man, factory worker, puppeteer, scientist. All of the monologues spoken—actually, the only words spoken in the piece—are formed out of various artists’ manifestos published over the last 150 years or so.

Rosefeldt offers us thirteen collages, drawing on the writings of Futurists, Dadaists, Fluxus artists, Suprematists, Situationists, Dogme 95, and the musings of artists, architects, dancers and filmmakers such as Claes Oldenburg, Yvonne Rainer, Kazimir Malevitch, André Breton, Elaine Sturtevant, Sol LeWitt and Jim Jarmusch. The result is a fascinating installation that reveals both the performative component and the political significance of these declarations.