The Hitch, videostill, 2012
Notes on a Long Garden Leave: The Work of Nicolas Manenti Sunshine Wong* Leaving a job may not mean that all ties with your company are neatly severed. To ensure confidentiality of company information, you can be subjected to a paid but workless period upon resigning, a socalled «garden leave» during which you are only an employee by contract but do not render any services. Berlin-based French artist Nicolas Manenti worked the graveyard shift as a security guard, as if he were put on perpetual garden leave: a member of staff only nominally, without the opportunity to produce anything. To be in a place depleted of activity with only the traces of absent colleagues (empty chairs, mute telephones, tea-stained mugs) as company, Manenti began to perfect the art of killing time. Dressed in a clerk’s uniform of shirt and tie, he reclines on desks in seductive poses, answers a phone that never rings, and stomps down the fluorescent-lit hallway like a supermodel.
The tragicomic white-collar antihero emerges for the first time in the video shorts, Interludes (2001 – 2002): «It’s what makes Clark Kent, Clark Kent. Not Superman,» Manenti insists. The bureaucentric vein has since become a staple his work, with an ever expanding cast of characters. Each of the 9-to-5ers in the Save our Jobs composites (2008 - ongoing) have been resketched by hand from stock photos and re-imagined in absurd or perverse professional situations. In a fell swoop of light, ironic gestures, he transforms the office – ordinarily regulated by hierarchy and constant performance anxieties exerted from the top down – into a parody of itself. Extending beyond the camp interpretations of our modern day work environs, Manenti also delves into labour as such, personally undergoing mindnumbing, repetitious activity as a method of contemplation. Company holidays stamped chronologically on an endless roll of fax paper (Betriebsferien, 2011) clearly hearkens to On Kawara’s iconic devotion to timekeeping. Where his grave statements of date and time betray Kawara’s concession to their exactitude, the stamped durations in Manenti’s piece are, despite his best efforts, prone to error, undermining the idea of precision by its very attempt. Similarly, Guy Debord’s «La société du spectacle» – a seminal text on mass media and the death of authenticity – is copied over by hand, reducing it to an illegible replica of itself (La société du spectacle copied over itself, 2008 - 2010). In it, he foretold the dominance of images and reproductions over the real.
Les Interludes, 2001
La societe du spectacle copiee sur elle-même, 2008-2010 (detail)
Representations would flourish, much like how the three office plants of Angenagelt (2008) is a cruel attempt to flatten and reduce reality. This is an artistic process that both relies upon and subjugates reality, a tension that reappears in many of Manenti’s installation pieces.
His work could be mistaken for being an easy punchline attacking our workaholic sensibilities when in fact it offers a layered, dialectical critique on social order. Parrying our perceptions on greatness, authenticity, and industriousness with wit, the joke’s ultimately on us.
Perspektiven (2007) shows a conference room in disarray, with every piece of furniture in a useless state: a legless chair, a teetering table with papers spilling onto the floor, and a flipchart used as a virtual dartboard for markers. The usual components found in a workspace are present but amok, believable but irrational. Summarising Manenti’s practice was never going to be a simple task. *Sunshine Wong ( 1976, Honk-Hong, lives and works in Sheffield/UK) is an independent curator and art critic. (http://muiji.com)
Timeline: 1.1.46-31.12.57, 2012 from the series Timelines (2002- ongoing) chop on fax paper rolls 280x21cm
Right Page: Timeline: Betriebsferien (94-05), started 2011 chop on fax paper, 4000 x 30 cm
The Timelines series (2002- present ) are like cheap time-travels for office workers... the fax paper displays a full sequence of dates a date-stamp can print, in a chronological order.
The stamp used in Betriebsferien subverts the principle of the Timelines Series: it prints time intervals ( in a ÂŤfrom dd/mm/ to dd/mm/yyÂť format ) rather than single dates. This increases the number of possible combination drastically: the listing process of all the possible time intervals would produce a ridiculously long roll of about 5 km.
The timelines produced by the use of different stamps are all different in length, not because of the availability duration of these objects -which is often standardized on 12 years- but because of the size of the object itself.
Office, 2004 desk, ink, looped DV-PAL video, 7W lamp, variable dimensions
Office and Beckoning are among the first installations Nicolas Manenti made. both create an oppressive scenery by the use of repetitive noises and claustrophobic sceneries: while the «Maneki Neko» (japanese lucky charms commonly seen in shops and believed to bring fortune) desesperately knock
the walls of empty lockers in a former parisian bank, the video displayed in «Office» features a character reminding of the «interludes» eternally turning on a chair, a lamp on his knees, like a crazy lighthouse.
Beckoning, 2006 25 ÂŤManeki NekoÂť, metal lockers, variable dimensions
Erinnerungen 2007-2010 marker on paper towels, 40 x 40 cm each, Magnets
Unpaid bills, dismissal letters and other «undesirable» papers are copied with markers on paper towels. The German word „Erinnerung“ means both remembrance and admonition.
La sociĂŠtĂŠ du spectacle- copie on the original itself, 2008-2010 marker on printed book, 18x11x1,5cm, 212 pages
Sightseeing Grand Luxe, 2006-2008 serie of sketches: marker, pencil on sketchbook, 24x18 cm
Sightseeing Grand Luxe is the origin of many installations (like Perspektiven and solarium) since 2006. The main idea is to turn an office environment into a
wild place by disturbing the objects and make transformations which questions their role in the social life of the people who use it.
Perspektiven 2007 table, paperboard, prints, PAL VidĂŠo, variable dimensions
Perspektiven, detail: Photocopies of documents used for Erinnerungen
Angenagelt 2008 plants, pins, variable dimensions
Untilted, 2009 wood, metal, variable dimensions
Was kann ich für sie tun, 2009 inkjetprint on Post-its, Ventilators, variable dimensions
Was kann ich für sie tun deals with the idealized image of the female in the corporate world. A very large amount of photos of call-center girls and businesswomen, produced to illustrate various articles or ads in corporate websites, are collected, printed on post-it notes and pasted all over the walls while two ventilators blow in different directions from the middle of the room. The title of the installation works as a double allusion to the standardized ways of corporate communication in the corporate and to the deception of the feminist movement’s strive to improve the women´s conditions the work force (Was kann ich für Sie tun – with a big S on Sie - means „how can i help you“ and is a common commercial sentence, while the same sentence with a little s on „sie“ means „what can i do for them/her“).
Untilted 2008 Digitalprint on paper (190g/m²) Unique copy, 130x90cm
Submit 2009 wood, framed photography, stainless steel, 40 x 40 x 120 cm
Implantation: BERLIN 2011-2012 wood, metal, carbon paper transfer on table, 160 x 140 x 80 cm (middle photo: detail)
The principle of Implantation is to randomly copy different historical plans of the same city, using carbon paper, on the same ground: «The French term „implantation» means colony or settlement. Its temporal component becomes obvious by the layering of the plans. (...) In the centre,
the carbon copies accumulate into an agglomeration, which seems to render the traces of human settlements. (...) Claudia Schönefeld, extract from: Schwerinblicke, Künstlersichten, exhibition catalogue.
Map (used for Implantation: BERLIN), 2011 Ink on printed paper, 160 x 110 cm
Drawings from the series Save our Jobs, started 2008 serie, marker on paper, framed: 18 x 24 cm or 15x21cm
Save our jobs depicts absurd scenes and awkward situations in very austere corporate decors, in a style close to that of magazine illustrations.
Drawings from the serie Lieblos Zusammengepresst, 2012 Marker, enamel paint on paper, variable sizes
The Hitch, 2012 Digital Video, projection in loop, 29:08 min
The Hitch is a looped performance video, shot in Yeouido, the business district of Seoul. A man walking in the street is continuously being struck down without resistance by another performer, who practices Hapkido. The video´s repetitive and unspectacular staging, frustrating the viewer´s climax expectations,
is an ironic contradiction to the traditionally heroic businessman and martial artist characters, who are depicted in a clumsy and comical situation reminding the slapsticks of the 1920’ s. With the kind help of Sangmukwan International training Center Ko Se-Hwang and Kim Chan Su.
Untilted 2010 digital print on Airtex Magic B1 (330g/m²), 285 x 190 cm
Guidelines (model), 2011 steel, velvet, plastic, flycatcher:scale 3/20, 50 x 50 x 17 cm
The Guidelines project features the crowd-control devices used in public spaces, but the lines themselves, arranged to form a labyrinthic passage, are made of flycatcher paper.
Nicolas MANENTI
*19.08.1980 in Albertville/F, lives and works in Berlin/D
Education
2004 Master in fine Art, ENBA Lyon/F 2003 DFJW grant, by Pr. Ruedi Baur, HGB Leipzig/D
Residencies and awards
2012 3rd Resident Artist Programm at Seoul Art Space Geumcheon, Seoul/ROK 2011 LAGE_EGAL, residency, Berlin/D
Selected solo exhibitions
2012 Black Monday, Cyart Gallery, Seoul/ROK Wohlfühlgeschäftsverkehr, Stattberlin, Berlin/D 2009 Was kann ich für sie Tun, FMAB Galerie, Berlin/D Solarium, AFThotwt..., Berlin/D 2007 Galerie Artport, Kolonie Wedding, Berlin/D Langjährige Unerfahrenheit, Atelier Seinfeld/Sachsenmaier, Berlin/D 2006 Lange Weilen, Galerie Cat Food, Berlin/D
Selected group exhibitions
2012 Nervus Rerum, Galerie Thomas Crämer, Berlin/D Continuous Art, Impossible Community, SAS Geumcheon, Seoul/ROK Millefeuilles, Institut Francais, Berlin/D 2011 Bureaux d´Etudes#1, Atelier La Mire, Lyon/F Prospektive, Galerie Thomas Crämer, Berlin/D Why we walk, 91mq, Berlin/D Wunderkammer, Lage 3/20, Berlin/D Projekt Kunstaktien, Uferhallen, Berlin/D 2010 5e Panorama de la jeune création, Bourges/F (Catalogue) As deep as you can, Schwimmhalle Pankow, Berlin/D Das Schönste im Leben, Pilotenküche, Leipzig/D. (co-Curator) Schwerinblicke, Staatlisches Museum, Schwerin/D. (Catalogue) A tree full of birds, FMAB & Mikrowesten @Formwerk, Eskilstuna/S 2009 Ma valise à Berlin, Institut Francais, Berlin/D Ich komme später, 91mQ, Berlin/D 25P, Niagara, New York/USA XIVth BJCEM Biennal, Skopje/MK (Catalogue) 2008 Missverstandnisse, Deutsches Kommunikationsmuseum, Berlin & FFM/D Die Zahl, Der Zufall, Das Spiel, Kunstverein Rügen, Putbus/D No admittance except on business, Galerie Tmp.deluxe, Berlin/D
Selected publications
2011 Dans l´ordre, in Dégradés, Editions 36 du mois, Lyon/F 2008 La société du spectacle(...) in BOOK, Editions Lendroit, Rennes/F
http://nicolasmanenti.com/
Aknowledgements
Photographic credits
Malte Brants Marjorie Brunet-Plaza Thomas Crämer Etienne Epron Pierre Granoux Michael Harvey Anna Häusler Steffen Kasperavicius Sabine Kayser Kim Chan-Su Ko Se-Hwan Peter Krilles Katharina Krizler Hungh Lan Namia Leigh Rémy Manenti Delphine Marinier Alexander Möbius Roland Moreau Andrew Roberts Andreas Sachsenmaier Claudia Schönefeld Madeline Stillwell Tian Tian Wang Sunshine Wong Risako Yamamoto
Cover, P 20-21: Katharina Krizler. P 6: Gérard Dufour/Christian Gallais P 16: Kai Zimmermann P 24: framed Photo by Sabine Kayser P 25, 29, 34,: Marjorie Brunet-Plaza All other photos: courtesy of the artist
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