MANRESA-SISU-POWER – JOSEPH BEUYS, HENNING CHRISTIANSEN AND BJØRN NØRGAARD

PRESS RELEASE (in Finnish)

MANRESA-SISU-POWER is a performance inspired by Joseph Beuys’ (1921–1986) Manresa Aktion, first staged in Düsseldorf in 1966 with Danish artists Henning Christiansen (b. 1932) and Bjørn Nørgaard (b. 1947). These artists, who worked closely with Beuys for years, have continued presenting the Manresa Aktion, starting in November 1994 in the Catalonian village of Manresa, which Beuys had originally named his performance after. Beuys’ actions—or demonstrations, as he called them—were an integral part of his artistic practice, aiming to outline a holistic vision of the relationships between the artist and society, humanity and nature, and spirit and matter. This aligns with Beuys’ famous assertion: “Every human being is an artist.”

The MANRESA-SISU-POWER performance in Pori incorporates various elements and materials, focusing on different forms of energy—ranging from the flowing water of the stage on Kokemäenjoki, natural sounds, and human-generated sounds to the duration of human action. Central to the Pori performance is a split cross, symbolizing Beuys’ concept of humanity’s divided reality: the spiritual and the material, the visible and the invisible.

The performance will take place on a barge positioned in the Kokemäenjoki river in front of the Pori Art Museum, with the audience watching from the riverbank. Admission to the performance is free. On Sunday, August 20, the museum will have extended opening hours from 11 AM to 10 PM, allowing visitors to explore the exhibition Diaspora – Connections in a Fragmenting World by Imants Tillers before or after the performance. Tillers’ paintings draw significantly from phrases repeated in the score of the Manresa Aktion.

The exhibition also includes text, image, and audio materials from the 1966 Manresa Aktion, along with video recordings, photographs, and drawings of the 1994 performance by Christiansen and Nørgaard.

Translated with ChatGPT