Recommended by Melanie Manchot
London-based artist Melanie Manchot employs photography, film, video and sound to form a sustained enquiry into how we form ideas about our individual and collective identities. Performance-to-camera, reconstruction and participation as well as location-based research are recurring methodologies. Moving image works, both single screen and multi-channel installations, operate on the cross section of documentary and staged events to investigate how fact, fiction, narrative and observation offer strategies for speaking about our shifting place in an increasingly mediated world. Manchot is currently in production for her first feature film, commissioned by Liverpool Biennial. Her work is held in many public collections and was recently presented in a major survey show at museum MAC/VAL, Paris.
For more information on Melanie Manchot see here.
Chisenhale Gallery entrance. Photo: Andy Keate
What is your favourite art space to visit? Somewhere you have been that had brought you joy.
For many years now, I have seen pretty much every show at Chisenhale Gallery in London’s East End. The program is consistently innovative and I have probably had some of my most memorable art experiences here, discovered new work, ideas, felt challenged and moved.
One place that remains special and that I return to often is the Sir John Soane’s Museum in Holborn. Its idiosyncratic and eclectic collection reminds us how the ever shifting material cultures, across architecture, design and art, shape our experiences - while of course we shape them in return, a dialogue of sorts. It also points to the often complex nature of collecting, of this kind of material accumulation. Over the last couple of years, Marian Goodman Gallery in London has presented one of the most exciting gallery programs, some truly outstanding shows, such as Danh Vo’s exhibition in 2019.
What have you seen in the past year which made you think you are looking at a new way of experiencing art? This can be an artwork, an exhibition, or a space.
A bit more than a year ago I visited KINDL - Centre for Contemporary Art, Berlin for the first time and was impressed with the spaces and the curatorial concepts that animated all the shows, their resonances and connections across this amazing building. The founding director, Andreas Fiedler, established the space through fiercely independent and imaginative programming. Its new director, Kathrin Becker, is known for her rigorous approach to art as a critical tool in speaking to the socio-economic challenges of our time. I expect her program to be highly pertinent and urgent in the precarious situations we are facing.
Can I mention another one? Sonia Boyce’s show at Manchester Art Gallery was simply outstanding!
Left: Kindl in Berlin. Right: Sir John Soane Museum. Photo: Gareth Gardner.
What show, gallery, institution or museum have you visited that you thought was worth the travel?
The Lightning Field by Walter de Maria in Western New Mexico. Staying in the cabin on the field is in itself an unforgettable experience. We were out on the field for hours, observing how the light changes continually, in infinite and subtle ways. We didn’t experience an actual thunderstorm or lightening but it didn’t matter. There was some small rolling thunder as a soundscape in the distance and lots of amazing cloudscapes. Throughout the night we could hear coyotes howl and when we got up for sunrise the field was full of life with myriad small animals.
Being at The Lightening Field is a profound reminder of that constant state of becoming, that is both nature and human. It is one of my all-time favourite art experiences. Or in fact simply: experiences.
Walter de Maria, The Lightning Field, New Mexico
If time and budget were not an obstacle, where would you like to visit (or revisit) from the places listed on The Art Pilgrim?
Your list makes me want to take out a year to visit all these amazing museums I have not had an opportunity to see so far. Especially in this year of monumental (COVID-19) restrictions to our living experience of art, reading your list is such a tease.
Top of my list would be Naoshima Island – I notice that it is the same for many of the people on your site. I’ll expect to see at least one of the Art Pilgrims there when I finally make it.
In your opinion, which city, other than London, Berlin or New York, has a really interesting and exciting art scene?
Many other cities or regions have richly diverse art scenes, nowadays it might be problematic to exclusively focus on established contemporary art centres, such as London, as places where art thrives. In fact, perhaps in the current socio-economic climate, these centres are the places where art and artists are most under threat. Exciting art scenes? Glasgow, Lisbon, Los Angeles, Mexico City…
If the world were coming to an end, and there was space for only one museum collection on the spaceship, which collection would you nominate and why?
Impossible to choose but if under the gun: The Louvre, Paris.
Film still from Jean-Luc Godard’s Bande a part
Why: it is one of the most comprehensive collections, one would never exhaust its potential to make us think, wonder, experience or its ability to surprise and to challenge our perceptions. On a very personal note: if the collection came with its building: one of my all-time favourite movie scenes is the iconic moment from Jean-Luc Godard’s Bande a part, when Odile, Franz and Arthur dash through the Louvre in record time. If the world was to come to an end, we would need the joy of running through the Louvre.
Anything else you would like to add?
One of the many realisations of these difficult last months during COVID is that we don’t experience art with our eyes and brains alone, we need the physical experience of art in real places – to think and look with our entire bodies alongside other bodies.
