Manifesta is one of those international ‘event’ exhibitions that are simultaneously in fashion and unpopular. Unlike Venice, with its clear agenda of national promotion, Manifesta began as a looser biennale of young European artists (now stretched to encompass non-European and more established artists) and, under the direction of the Amsterdam-based foundation, has maintained a nomadic existence; the next scheduled ‘edgy’ location for this itinerant circus of contemporary art is Cyprus.

At each incarnation, attention is focused on the curatorial team, with journalists seeking signs of a rift between professionals thrown together often for the first time. This year it seems Marta Kuzma and Massimiliano Gioni were in perfect harmony, creating a coherent and intelligent exhibition, although some visitors complained it lacked the ‘punch’ of 2002’s Frankfurt offering.

Despite lengthy catalogue essays locating the exhibition within the fractured political context of the Basque Country, one leaves with memories of good individual works and less of a sense of an overall curatorial concept, which is perhaps no bad thing. The show is also relatively small, presenting around 50 artists, predominantly newcomers to the international exhibition circuit.





At San Telmo, many works share a preoccupation with the construction of narrative and the mediation of information. Hito Steyerl’s video November (2004) – a postscript to Eisenstein’s film Oktober (1928) – examines the month when the optimism of revolution fades. Narrated by the artist, the documentary focuses on the assassination of German activist Andrea Wolf as a suspected Kurdish terrorist, revealing how weapons of the former DDR were passed on to the Turkish military, which has since used them to oppress the Kurds. With footage ranging from Kung-Fu movies to protest rallies, the work explores the internationalism of arms and of images. Next door is Cengiz Çekil’s Unwritten (1976), Turkish newspapers with the text blanked out, only the photographs left to tell the story – a critique of Turkey’s then dominant realist painting and its claims to veracity.

The adjoining chapel presents videos infused with a knowing sentimentality, encapsulated in Maria Lusitano’s film Nostalgia (2002). The fictional tale of a Portuguese family in Mozambique in the 1960s, comprising found cine film, photographs and clichéd songs, makes for compelling viewing and plays with expectations of narrative resolution. Gillian Wearing’s Tedi (2003) is an amusing video of an overly serious young boy, dressed like a mini statesman, giving a guided tour of Tirana in a parody of the performance of nationalism that has created such sweeping political consequences in Albania.

The highlight here is Yevgeniy Yufit’s Killed by Lightning (2002), a rich piece of filmmaking which tells the tale of a girl whose father, a submarine captain, is missing, presumed dead. She wonders at his fate, imagining his crew marooned on a desert island; her daydreams merge with the scenes of prehistoric man she sees in an ethnological museum. As an adult she studies evolution and concludes that Darwin’s theory is false, a thesis that marks the end of her career. Reminiscent of Michel Houellebecq’s ambitious novel Atomised (1999), the work suggests an alternative future for the human species, simultaneously engaging the audience in a persuasive fiction.

At the Kubo Kutxa Kursaal the emphasis is on architecture in the widest sense, on the (de)construction of space and navigation of territory. Vangelis Vlahos’s research Buildings like Texts are Socially Constructed (2004) examines the symbolism of landmark buildings, such as Sarajevo’s Unis Towers, virtually destroyed during the war but now headquarters to a telecommunications empire. Laura Horelli’s documentary Helsinki Shipyard/Port San Juan (2002–3) also explores the wider context of construction, interviewing the builders, designers and crew of a ship at a time when heavy industry must adapt to cater for leisure and tourism.


  


Eyal Sivan and Michel Khleifi’s documentary Route 181 (2003) portrays daily life in the occupied territories. The absurd and precarious situation is epitomised in a brief interview with two teenage Israeli checkpoint guards, flirting and discussing their plans to marry one another when demobbed, showing the cameraman their matching tongue studs, guns slung across their chests.

At the Casa Crizia, Spie Eyes (2003), by Iliya Chickhan and Kyrill Protsenko, is a meditation on propaganda and visual history. The video triptych (with catchy whistled refrain) juxtaposes whirling peasant dances, slow catwalk spins of a 1950s fashion show and foreign dignitaries arriving at Russian airfields. Upstairs Micol Assaël’s Untitled (2004), a room of throbbing motors, creates a stifling stench of gas, recalling the building’s industrial past and leaving visitors gasping for air. Equally breathtaking (but inspiring the visitor to linger) is Olivier Zabat’s Miguel et les Mines (2002). The six-part documentary weaves together the stories of an African guerrilla turned boxing coach, a Scottish woman with a fondness for tiger jigsaws and her mine-clearing husband who writes rhyming poems about his work. Zabat allows his subjects to speak with emotional honesty, their tales seemingly direct and unmediated.

David Zink Yi’s video La Cumbia (1999) injects some comedy into the proceedings. Having painted his body bright green, leaving just two fingers uncoloured – a reversal of Douglas Gordon’s Three Inches [Black] (1997) – he films them prancing across the landscape of his skin, stopping sporadically to drum the rhythm of the eponymous music.

Perhaps, however, the star of Manifesta 5 is Denkmal #2 (2004), Jan de Cock’s magnificent green construction at the faded shipyard of Ondartxo. Its form echoes the surrounding architecture, its smooth surface complements the rust and peeling paint of the neighbouring fishing boats, and its luminous colour resonates with the muted blue of the bay.