Heavy-handed tactics that sunk Manifesta
(archive article - Tuesday, June 6, 2006)

MANIFESTA 6, by far the most prestigious and highest-profile art festival ever to be held in Cyprus, was officially cancelled last week as the eagerly-awaited project disintegrated into an acrimonious legal dispute, with a variety of threats and accusations flying around. The 2006 European biennale of contemporary art was finally laid to rest by a sternly-worded letter – dated June 1 and signed by Nicosia Mayor Michael Zampelas – terminating the contracts of the three curators working in Cyprus on behalf of the organisers, International Foundation Manifesta (IFM).

The mayor was writing as president of Nicosia for Art (NFA), the private company set up to deal with the project on behalf of the municipality, which has been at loggerheads with the curatorial team for several months now over the latter’s insistence on locating the art school that would be set up in both parts of Nicosia. Although the NFA initially had no objections to such an arrangement, it later made an about-turn, claiming that for legal reasons no part of the art school could be located in north Nicosia.

Among the reasons cited were that it could not guarantee health and safety in the north and that it could not legally make payments, from funds provided by the Cyprus government, to companies or individuals in the occupied north. This about-turn signified the point at which the government, with its trademark legalistic approach to things, had taken charge, behind the scenes, of the negotiations with the curators. Political pressure was also applied on NFA and the government by Greek Cypriot artists, who publicly stated that they were not prepared to show passports at the checkpoint in order to attend the art school in the north.

Even if the concerns of the government and the NFA were perfectly legitimate, the heavy-handed tactics they employed in dealing with the curators and the IFM were guaranteed to lead to a fiasco and yet another international embarrassment for Cyprus. As for the way the NFA tried to silence the curators, threatening them with legal action if they attempted to talk publicly about the project, it merely underlined this unnecessary heavy-handedness.

The overriding impression is that there never is any generosity or goodwill shown in this government’s dealings with the north, direct or indirect. The option of finding ways around the problems that surfaced was not even explored – the funding of the school in the north could have come from abroad, while liability for health and safety at the venue in the north could have been taken by IFM – the NFA preferring to dig in its heels in the hope that the curators would eventually give in.

But what did the government and the NFA achieve with their uncompromising stance? The cancellation of the biggest and most prestigious art project Cyprus would ever have staged and the prospect of costly legal battles with the organisers. Then there is the negative publicity we will receive, because outside Cyprus the cancellation will be seen, rightly or wrongly, as yet another example of government’s insistence on keeping the Turkish Cypriots isolated at all costs. The conclusion all outsiders will arrive at will be that the government was prepared to sacrifice Manifesta 6 rather than allow the Turkish Cypriot side to play an active part in it.

This may be wrong, but it is what everyone will be thinking as a result of the appalling handling by the government and NFA.

Cyprus Mail 2006

How Manifesta was lost

By Agnieszka Rakoczy

THE EUROPEAN Biennale of Contemporary Art Manifesta 6, one of the most important art events in the European art calendar, was to change the image of Nicosia, a small, divided city with limited cultural life.

The idea was to make the city a hive of activity for 100 days for an international set of artists, art students and art critics and to liven up the old town at its core, since 1974 a stagnant labyrinth of rundown buildings and ruins divided by a time-warped landscape trapped in the UN-patrolled buffer zone that separates north from south.

“The fact that I am here smiling and enjoying myself means that Nicosia is about to host one of the most important and fascinating cultural events in the world and the biennial Manifesta 6 event is rated in the top three Contemporary Art events,” said Nicosia’s mayor Michael Zampelas a year ago, at the official launch of the event. “We hope that the event, which will take place in 2006 will be bi-communal with both of the island’s main communities taking part. In 2006 Nicosia will feel the pride of any other European city.”

In total, 1.8 million euros was to be spent on an international art school, the major component of the biennale, planned to take place in Nicosia between September and December this year. One million euros was secured from three main local sponsors: the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism and the Nicosia Municipality. The rest was to come from international and local organisations that both the International Foundation Manifesta (IFM) and Nicosia Municipality’s non-profit organisation Nicosia for Art (NFA) were to target. The school was to be based on experience of the Black Mountain College created in America in the 30s and also draw from educational ideas of such prominent artists as members of avant-garde group Fluxus – George Maciunas and Joseph Beuys. It was to be postgraduate, international and trans-disciplinary, with three departments, each run by one of the curators, and about 60 to 100 students. A certain number of places was to be reserved for Cypriots from both the north and the south.

“My wish and my vision is that the city will be filled with art, artists and students who will fill it with a brand new energy,” general co-ordinator of the biennale and director of the Nicosia Municipal Art Centre Yiannis Toumazis said last November. “I expect it will be especially visible within the Old Town, currently trying to re-design and re-create itself. Imagine all the students, teachers, artists and high-calibre experts co-existing in Nicosia for 100 days, joining together their experience and innovative ideas. We need this new approach.

“The will of the curators is that the event will happen all over Nicosia, especially old Nicosia. Of course, it will be also an event in bi-communal context. We want to organise the event out of which both communities will profit. Our aim is to use venues on both sides of the Green Line. For this reason we are also organising informal and unofficial meetings in next few weeks with institutions and individuals on both sides of the Green Line to inform them about the Manifesta.”
Unfortunately, the past week’s developments mean there is not going to be a “new approach”, there is not going to be a biennale, there will be no explosion of art. The attempts to resolve numerous differences between the Manifesta 6 curatorial team and NFA ended in disaster and Nicosia’s mayor pulled the plug on the project he bid one million euros for just two years ago. On Thursday, he fired the curators and broke off the contract with the IFM.

In an official statement issued on Friday, the mayor explained that the main reason for NFA terminating the contracts was the insistence of both the curators and IFM on locating part of Manifesta 6 Art School in north Nicosia.

“Recently and contrary to the original concept of the Manifesta 6 programme, the curatorial team insisted on the establishment and operation of an essential part of the Manifesta 6 school in the occupied part of Nicosia,” the statement said. “Through relevant correspondence, NFA and its board, have made clear from the outset that the establishment and operation on a permanent basis of an essential part of the school in the occupied part of Nicosia, apart from being in conflict with certain aspects of Cyprus and international law, was also outside the ambit of the terms of the respective agreements and in breach of NFA’s contractual right to have autonomy in making decisions of this kind. The above was a major obstacle in the continuation and the realisation of Manifesta 6.”

The statement went on to accuse both the curators and the IFM of making “every effort in creating a political issue out of a purely legal matter” and “assigning political dimensions to a cultural event, which had as one of its primary aims the creation of a platform of co-operation between the two communities in Cyprus, within a spirit of solidarity and common understanding”.

Florian Waldvogel and Anton Vidokle, the two curators still present on the island (Egyptian curator Abu ElDahab left Cyprus on May 27 because she didn’t have a work permit to stay and her tourist visa expired), told the Sunday Mail that the letter of termination they received contained a paragraph stating they could not reveal any of its contents, that if they did so they would be immediately sued by the municipality. They also said that in spite of the fact that their job agreement with the municipality didn’t contain a confidentiality clause they were told they were not allowed to reveal any part since Cyprus law does not require a contract such as theirs to have a confidentiality clause expressly incorporated into it. (The Sunday Mail contacted several lawyers over this claim and none of them confirmed this to be the case.)

Both curators were adamant that the concept of having the activities of the biennale on both sides of the Green Line were not as “recent and contrary to the original concept” as implied in the NFA’s statement.

They insisted that the idea was raised from the outset and that the IFM’s representatives said as much when they first visited Nicosia to meet with municipal officials and other dignitaries.

“Officially, I think it was at the beginning of 2004 [before Nicosia was officially selected] when the IFM director Hedwig Fijen and several other members of its board like Vicente Todoli, the director of London’s Tate Modern and Francesco Bonami, the senior curator of Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, came to Cyprus and had several meetings with the local officials like the mayor and the minister of culture,” said Vidokle. “And from the very outset they talked about Manifesta 6 taking place on both sides of the city and the officials said ‘yes’.”

“As far as we were concerned everything we did was based on this understanding,” he continued. “And actually, until March 25 we were never told that it was wrong. For example, after being chosen, we were invited to Nicosia. We came in December 2004, had a number of meetings with the mayor and Yiannis Toumazis, were taken to the north, to Famagusta and the northern part of Nicosia. Afterwards, on several occasions we were assured by the mayor that doing the project in the north would not be a problem because Kutlay Erk was his best friend. Yiannis also reassured us. He even went with us to visit Erk, who actually wasn’t as optimistic as Zampelas. He did assure us of his informal support because he wanted Manifesta to happen.

“Last summer we started looking for venues on both sides – again with the municipality’s full help. Constantinos Panayiotis who works for the municipality was assigned by NFA to do research on both sides to identify vacant buildings that could be used by Manifesta. In the office, we put up a map of Nicosia, both north and south, with streets names and pins indicating possible locations, again on both sides.

“When I came back in November I started talking with Anber Onar about her building in the old town because it was vacant. Initially I was quite interested so I asked Yiannis to look into it. Two persons – one from the Power House and one from Manifesta went there and took pictures. Yiannis asked Anber about the rental price and we thought it was too expensive so we started looking again. In January or late December, I started talking with Rana Zingir Celal about her building. There were several meetings between her and Yiannis and she provided him with a copy of the original title deed proving that it was originally a Turkish Cypriot property.

And then I suddenly I had this feeling that it was going nowhere. We had all these meetings but I kept asking Yiannis when we could confirm we had the building. He kept on saying it was very difficult. Then I started insisting and the whole thing exploded.”

The same version of events was confirmed by Waldvogel. “I had a lecture on my department of school at the beginning of March at the Weaving Mill,” he said. “And people were asking about the department in the north and Yiannis was confirming and defending it. Then on March 16 Anton had a talk in the north and again there was no problem. Only on March 25, during our official meeting in Berlin, Yiannis said we could not do it in the north because they could neither insure nor protect us there and also because some people would not cross because they would have to show their passports.

“I just want to ask how Yiannis and Mr Zampelas have been living here all their lives and know everything about this conflict, but didn’t they tell us this at the beginning of the project? Why did they wait till March when all the plans were finalised?”

Ironically, similar sentiments have been expressed by one of the Manifesta project’s most vehement opponents, artist and journalist Kikos Lanitis, who has been writing about the subject for months in Simerini newspaper.

“I think they didn’t notice,” he said. “They were so happy that Manifesta was coming to Nicosia that they didn’t see that there was a very sensitive political line there they were stepping over. Even when newspapers were asking them these questions they just ignored them.”

But although the curators agreed the real source of the problem was deeply rooted in local politics they also said the location of the art school was only one of the issues raised during the abortive mediation meeting between their representative and NFA spokesman Nicholas Efstathiou on Friday, May 26.

Many of the issues related to charges of mismanagement and disorganisation within the ranks of the NFA team and included: the state of the biennale’s budget, lack of set rules regarding expenditure and cash-flow in the project, lack of contracts for artists invited to participate in the project and the curators’ working conditions.

“As far as we know Nicholas was ordered by the municipality’s lawyer to say ‘no’ to everything,” said Waldvogel. “He is a very reasonable man. I think the situation was also embarrassing for him.

“I just can’t understand why for 18 months the municipality failed to arrange for a work permit for our colleague Mai. I don’t understand why they could not give us information about the state of our budget, why they could not arrange for visas for our assistants, nor pay them for their work, why they couldn’t send official contracts to the artists we invited so they could start working on their projects, why even the students we accepted haven’t yet received official letters of acceptance from NFA.

“We asked these questions time and again. We tried every possible way to find out what was going on. I wrote an e-mail to Yiannis only last week to meet all of us and talk. There was no answer. Anton sent a similar letter in April, with the same result. We had several meetings with members of the IFM Board who tried to mediate. It didn’t work. There seems to be no will here to find an agreement. We have really tried everything. That is why we have gone to the press because we were desperate.”

Calls to the Mayor’s office, to Yiannis Toumazis and Minister of Education and Culture Pefkios Georgiades went unreturned all week. The Cyprus Tourism Organisation (CTO) did respond, saying it sponsored Manifesta 6 with £100.000, spread over two years, and paid out according to receipts submitted for real expenses.

“The responsibility for the organisation of Manifesta 6 has been undertaken by Nicosia for Arts Ltd,” said Lefkos Phylactides , the CTO executive director. “The CTO has not been involved in any way in the organisation of the event.  We have already asked Nicosia Municipality to inform us regarding the latest developments concerning the organisation of the biennale."

Cyprus Mail 2006

Nicosia Municipality hits back at Manifesta ‘distortions’

By Elias Hazou

NICOSIA for Art (NFA) yesterday presented its side of the story on why Manifesta 6, one of the most important art events in the European art calendar, was abruptly cancelled.

The idea behind the endeavour was to make the city a hive of activity for 100 days for an international set of artists, art students and art critics.

However, last week hosts NFA, run by the Nicosia municipality, pulled the plug on the event. Mayor Michalakis Zampelas explained that the main reason for the NFA terminating the contracts was the insistence of both the curators and the International Foundation Manifesta (IFM) on locating part of Manifesta 6 Art School in north Nicosia.

Both curators were adamant that the concept of having the activities of the biennale on both sides of the Green Line were not as “recent and contrary to the original concept” as implied in the NFA’s statement.

Anton Vidokle, one of the curators claimed that the very outset there was an understanding that Manifesta 6 was to take place on both sides of the city and that local officials said had agreed to this.

The curators speculated that political pressure from above led to the scrapping of Manifesta 6.
But in a statement released yesterday, the NFA denied the accusations, insisting any fault for this turn of events lay squarely on the shoulders of the IFM.

“Firstly, we must stress that the initial idea adopted by the Curators as intended in the organisation included the creation of one integrated school, which the Curators themselves had decided to locate at the Nicosia Municipal Arts Centre.

“Unfortunately, given internal problems amongst the curators, which proved irresolvable in spite of all the efforts on the part of the host to overcome them, we were led to the splitting of the school into three departments, the responsibility of which would fall upon each of the three curators accordingly.

“Just this past February and while the search for the venues was ongoing throughout the whole city, a proposal for the rental of the Misirlizade Centre in Seray Square in occupied Nicosia was submitted. Despite the fact that the curators had previously decided that only the buildings which were offered free of charge would be used (as was the case with all previous Manifesta events), the organisers decided to investigate this possibility.

“It became clear from the outset that the establishment and operation of a department of the school in the occupied territories on a permanent basis stood in conflict both with Cyprus as well as International Law principles. Due to the obligatory passport check by the non-recognised ‘Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus’, it was not possible for NFA as the host of the event, to guarantee free access to participants as well as to the public at large. This was a contractual obligation of the host. The fact that participation in the main programme of the school was ‘obligatory and not optional (as would have been the case for ‘one-off’ events) created a serious legal problem given that the host would not be in a position to scrutinise and challenge the unlawful process of passport checks exercised by the ‘authorities’ of the so-called ‘Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus’.

“Even the establishment and operation of infrastructure on territory that is under occupation created insurmountable, real and fundamental problems (obtaining of licences, insurance, operations, permits for events in public places, and many more). It should also be stressed that, according to the contract, the host is autonomous in respect of the final choice of venues in which the undertakings and events of Manifesta will take place. Both IFM and the Curators repeatedly and strongly disputed NFA’s autonomy in this respect.”

In closing, the NFA expressed its “deepest regret for this unfortunate outcome, but also… surprise and disappointment for the manner in which the matter was handled, by both IFM and the curators, especially through incomplete public statements.

“The reasons that led to the termination of the event were purely of a legal nature and, in contrast to claims manifested by IFM and the curators, had nothing to do with political interference or pressure.

“Unfortunately… the rhetoric surrounding an issue as serious as the Cyprus problem has been used in such a way as to depict and reinforce division and bipolarity, instead of fundamentally contributing to its understanding.

“In spite of all the polemics to which the host, the Nicosia Municipality and the local community is subjected, as part of the distortion of its genuine and honest intentions, the Nicosia Municipality will nevertheless continue to pursue international collaborations that have the potential to create the climate for a real dialogue and promote, within and outside of the arts, programmes that strengthen tolerance and multiculturalism.”

Cyprus Mail 2006

Turkish Cypriots insist project will go ahead

By Simon Bahceli

TURKISH Cypriots linked to the beleaguered Manifesta art project say the event will go ahead, despite the sacking on Thursday of all the curators involved.

“It will happen, and it will happen in the way Manifesta envisioned – extremely successfully, and maybe even better than originally planned,” host committee member Rana Zingir Celal told the Sunday Mail yesterday, adding that artists in the north would now be “working independently, unencumbered by having to work in an official capacity”.

One Turkish Cypriot participating artist, Anber Onar, told the Mail, “For the artists nothing is changing. Whether or not there is agreement with Nicosia for Art, it will not discourage this event from taking place. If necessary we will hold a shadow Manifesta in the north”.

Zincir Celal partly blamed “a serious lack of communication” and “an active policy to block any kind of communication with the north” for the cutting of ties between the Greek Cypriot Nicosia for Art organisation and Manifesta.

“Nicosia for Art can now do whatever it likes, and Manifesta can still set up its associations with whoever else it wants,” she said.

Zincir Celal she had witnessed a change in attitude by Nicosia for Art towards Turkish Cypriot involvement.

“It was not like this at the beginning. Something changed at some point,” she said.


She added: “The Greek Cypriots were using Manifesta to present themselves to the international art crowd and Europe. Unfortunately for them the curators have turned out to be more sincere and genuine than they would have liked.”

Now Zingir Celal says alternative funds could be available for staging the event if the Cypriot government pulls out completely.

“More people are interested in providing funds for the event now,” she said, adding that interested parties also included some Greek Cypriots and foreign ambassadors.

Onar and Zingir Celal sought yesterday to play down any idea that Turkish Cypriot artist might seek to make political capital out of the row that has erupted between Manifesta and its Greek Cypriot hosts, with Onar saying, “The political significance is probably more important for the Europeans than it is for us. They have been shocked. They are now saying ‘we can’t work with these people’.”

Cyprus Mail 2006