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.
Jan de Cock, BE
Jan de Cock, Denkmal 2, 2004 © Manifesta 5.
Urban space intervention in Ondartxo
Belgian artist Jan de Cock took over a space in the neighbourhood of Ondartxo, a former shipbuilding warehouse and an emblematic site that was the subject of municipal efforts to revitalise the city’s port. Denkmal 2 evolved in relation to the architectural features of the building’s interior and the more polemical reality of its exterior. Working without plans, over a period of two months, the artist obscured basic architectural features by developing an intricate construction that complicated conventional readings of interior and exterior, upper and lower.