Manifesta 13 Marseille: Critique of Grand Puzzle and Hospice Exhibition

Laurent Perez critiques Manifesta 13 in Marseille, focusing on its urban study publication 'Le Grand Puzzle' and the 'Hospice' exhibition at Vieille-Charité. The Grand Puzzle, produced by Dutch firm MVRDV and The Why Factory (TU Delft), aims to contextualize the biennial but is criticized for its consensual tone and failure to address local social conflicts, such as the 2018 protests over Place de la Plaine, building collapses in Noailles, the Yellow Vests movement, and the death of Zineb Redouane. The publication features interviews with local elites that lack critical voices, except for sociologists Michel Peraldi and Michel Samson. Its second part acknowledges poverty, segregation, and pollution but uses dubious comparisons to downplay issues (e.g., comparing Marseille homicides to Athens, school numbers to Oslo). The third part includes student ideas deemed mostly insignificant. The 'Hospice' exhibition at Vieille-Charité, referencing Foucault's 'great confinement,' presents works by Artaud, Rimbaud, Pierre Guyotat, Pauline Curnier Jardin, and Roland Barthes, but Perez finds it a superficial checklist of marginalized identities (homosexuality, decolonial themes, drug use). He argues the biennial's social engagement is undermined by its market-driven structure, offering a 'radically consensual' leftist discourse without practical consequences.