Manifesto - video installation with Cate Blanchett - Art Gallery of NSW

German artist Julian Rosefeldt has created a series of video installations with Australian actor Cate Blanchett to give visual and audio meaning to a number of the most famous and provocative writings by artists of the modern era. Through a series of monologues edited and reassembled by Rosefeldt, the videos draw on a collage of artists’ manifestos, including declarations by futurists, dadaists and situationists, collected writings by individual artists, architects, dancers and filmmakers such as Sol LeWitt, Yvonne Rainer and Jim Jarmusch.

Blanchett performs in all of these video installations through appearing as 13 different personas including a school teacher, a newsreader, a factory worker, a socialite and a homeless man  exploring the power and urgency of these historical words in the modern world. The monologues are delivered in different settings and locations linked to the identity of each character - from a power plant,  a school room, a manufacturing plant, a television newsroom, a cocktail party lounge room and a family dining room. In one video Blanchett's actual husband, playwright Andrew Upton, features together with their children. Whether intentional or not, Rosefeldt has created a series of parodies of varying strengths and relevance creating an almost bleak and one dimensional of images accentuated only by the absurdity of some of Blanchett's portrayals.  

Manifesto has been  commissioned by the Art Gallery of NSW, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), the Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin the Sprengel Museum, Hannover, and Ruhrtriennale – Festival of the Arts.

The exhibition will be screening until January 2017.

Cirque du Soleil - Kooza - Sydney 2016 - Review

acrobatic performers from Cirque du Soliel - Kooza - Sydney 2016

Kooza from Canada's Cirque du Soleil, currently on tour in Sydney, is one of the performing company's more intimate and old-school style circus acrobatic shows. The Big Top (often referred to as the Grande Chapiteau) is smaller with the seating brought forward around the 260 degree circular stage, the performers extending their activities to aisles closest to and around the audience. The clowns, often used a diversions around set, scene and act changes, are half the show, bringing a stronger interaction with the audience. This is intentional as Kooza's creators are seeking to 'create a scenographic environment that offers true proximity to the audience and where danger is palpable' combined with the two circus traditions of acrobatic performance and the art of clowning.

Initially created in 2007 by David Shiner, Kooza is a strong performance and visual show offering intensity and skill in smaller format than many of Cirque du Soleil's conceptually massive spectacles. The clown characters - The Innocent, the King, the Trickster, the Heimloss, the Obnoxious Tourist and his Bad Dog appear throughout with earthy, sometimes rude but genuine humour (The Bad Dog even managing to lift up his canine leg and do a fake urination on unsuspecting audience members).  The acrobatic acts are superb with many highlights including the lithe Mongolian contortionists in duet; the double decker hire wire act (they ride bicycles along the hire wire and have a fencing match); the jaw-dropping Wheel of Death, the solo chair balance act and the blurred hoola hoop routine to name a few. 

As with all Cirque du Soleil Shows, the custom created sounds are provided by a live 8 piece band with perfectly matched music to each moment of the show.  The set design for Kooza, includes a travelling tower called the Bataclan which moves artists in and out of the spotlight, serves as the bandstand and has two flanking curved staircases. A giant fabric structure call the Void with painted motifs of leaves compliments  the Bataclan with additional fabric sails which opena nd close around the tower. This is a clever and inspired set design of a high order which enables the audience to focus easily on the 50 odd performers on stage.

Cirque du Soleil have produced a masterful show which will be in Sydney until November 2016.