The Park Avenue Armory’s Drill Hall, which has seen many a regiment of National Guard soldiers practice military manoeuvres, will serve as a fitting platform for the premier of Manifesto (2015), the multi-screen film installation by the German filmmaker Julian Rosefeldt. The project, on view from 7 December to 8 January 2017, stars the Academy Award-winning actress Cate Blanchett, who channels more than 50 artistic calls to action through 13 monologues that draw on the writings of artist groups throughout the 20th century, such as the Dadaists, Futurists and Fluxus artists.
There is a textual collage that accompanies the film installation with quotations from the philosophies of artists such as Kazimir Malevich, Claes Oldenburg and Sol LeWitt, among others. In a prologue that is a nod to the political tradition of manifestos, viewers are presented with an image of a burning fuse as Blanchett recites perhaps the most famous example—the Manifesto of the Communist Party written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and originally published as a pamphlet in 1848.
