Manifesta purposely strives to keep its distance from what are often seen as the dominant centres of artistic production, instead seeking fresh and fertile terrain for the mapping of a new cultural topography.
Manifesta 13 Marseille was one of the only international biennials to take place during the global pandemic COVID-19, the biennial ended earlier than planned due to the second national lockdown
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Dennis Cooper, Zac Farley, US/US/FR
ast Spring : a Prequel, 2011 © Gisèle Vienne et / and Dennis Cooper. Photo ©Jeanchristophe Lett /Manifesta 13 Marseille.
Last Spring: A Prequel is both an autonomous work and a prequel for the work in progress Last Spring, where the visitors are sent on the trail of the teenaged boy Charles, animated with the voice of Jonathan Capdevielle, who is engaged in a schizophrenic dialogue with his seemingly evil puppet. As visitors make their way through a hotel-like mental labyrinth, they learn about Charles’ story via their encounters with a complex puzzle of elements: a soundscape devised by Stephen O’Malley and Peter Rehberg; a text written by Dennis Cooper and delivered by an animated boy-like mannequin claiming to be Charles with his hand pupped.
On the walls of La Vieille Charité, Charles has obsessively drawn blueprints and maps that give visitors a clue to his actual location. The Last Spring works offer dizzying and disturbing mise-en-abymes that raise serious questions about 1 2 the trustworthiness of our perceptions and show us how events degrade when filtered through the subjectivity of language and other forms of representation.