Creating a new Europe through contemporary art: Manifesta and its relation to art, society and politics

Manifesta - European Biennial of Contemporary Art is a nomadic biennial that takes place every two years in a different city of Europe. In this dissertation, I focus on Manifesta's political, economic, urban and artistic relationships with its host cities and regions as well as the changes that occur in its own goals, discourse and organization over time. I argue that Manifesta is one of the new institutions of neoliberal governance in the field of art in the post-Cold War era. During the dissertation, I evaluate each edition of the biennial within its own context, adopt theoretical approaches suitable for this context and compare editions to find common points. I identify three significant periods within the history of Manifesta. In its first period, namely from its birth as an idea in the early 90’s to the Ljubljana edition held in 2000, Manifesta aimed to reach to the post-communist regions. Later, until its ninth edition held in Genk - Limburg (2012), Manifesta shifted its attention from the East-West axis to the North-South axis within Europe and concentrated more on the promotion of regions than cities. In its last and on-going period that started in 2014 in St. Petersburg, it went beyond the EU zone after the global systemic crisis and acted pragmatically in terms of its discourse. By investigating each editions’ complex set of relations in detail, this dissertation contributes to a better understanding of both Manifesta and the phenomenon of contemporary art biennials