11 Rooms

As part of the 2011 Manchester International Festival, a series of identical white rooms at Manchester Art Gallery, a space more usually associated with glowing Pre-Raphaelite paintings, curators Hans-Ulrich Obrist and Klaus Biensenbach gave 11 artists a space – and time – to fill. The result was in Obrist’s words, ‘like a sculpture gallery where all the sculptures go home at 6pm.’

Audiences travelled round the gallery interacting with performers and pieces that were resolutely ‘live’ – ranging from Tino Sehgal’s eerie and affecting living doll Annlee to the bedroom comedy drama of Simon Fujiwara’s Playing the Martyr, via the austere, heartbreaking Veterans of the Wars of Northern Ireland, Afghanistan and Iraq Facing the Corner by Santiago Sierra. Ambiguous and affecting, 11 Rooms was a major hit with the international art scene and local audiences alike.

Programme designed with consultation from Peter Saville.