12 Days of Manchester: 11 is a good number of rooms for an art exhibition
- I was scraping the barrel for things in Manchester related to 11
- I found out there had been an interesting exhibition at MIF called 11 rooms
- Part of a series on Manchester's culture to keep you entertained over the break
I had a tough time trying to come up with something for 11. My search results mainly yielded things about the postcode M11 and the M11 motorway for some reason, despite it going from London to Cambridge.
But eventually I stumbled across 11 rooms, an exhibition for the 2011 Manchester International Festival (MIF).
The concept was to take 11 identical rooms at the Manchester Art Gallery and assign an artist to each of them to do a performance piece. Attendees could enter and exit each room as they pleased, not knowing what they were to find in each one.
According to the MIF website there was a living doll exhibition in one room and a bedroom comedy drama in another.
The exhibition was curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Klaus Biesenbach and was a major hit on the art scene.
Obrist described it as, ‘like a sculpture gallery where all the sculptures go home at 6pm’.
As I didn’t attend it personally, I can’t say a great deal about it, but be sure to check out the MIF website for their programme for this year’s festival and if you’re interested a review in the Telegraph from someone who was there.
I shall see you tomorrow for the final part of this series, and the final piece before we return from the Christmas break to bring you the Manchester news you know and love us for.