ST PETERSBURG.- Marking the 20-year anniversary of the Manifesta Biennial and 250 years of the State Hermitage Museum, Manifesta 10, the European Biennial of Contemporary Art, took place in Russia for the first time and within the most eastern context since its inception in 1994. The biennial attracted an astounding 1,510,309 visits across all venues: the Winter Palace and General Staff Building (both of the State Hermitage Museum), the Apartment Art as Domestic Resistance and to many of the education and public program events that took place across the city. 70% of the visitors attending the biennial were from St Petersburg and the Leningrad region*.

Curated by the eminent German curator Kasper König with invited curators, the curatorial team including Joanna Warsza (Public Program), Nathalie Hoyos and Rainald Schumacher from Office for Art (Berlin) whom devised the film program “Unlooped—KINO”.

The biennial realized major commissions of Thomas Hirschhorn, Dominique Gonzales- Foerster, Elena Kovylina, Tatzu Nishi, Erik van Lieshout, as well as homage to the late Maria Lassnig. The Public Program also ten specially commissioned time based projects and over 70 events including Slavs and Tartars, Deimantas Narkevičius, Alevtina Khakhidze, Pavel Braila and Kristina Norman among others.

The extensive Education & Audience Development program engaged 35,801 through mediation tours, workshops, dialogues and projects such as the Manifesta 10 Dacha. The response to the introduction of mediation a new pedagogic methodology in the State Hermitage Museum was well received by Russian audiences.

‘It is very important to support dialogue with the audience, as the communication process assists in the discovering of new ways of looking and opens new perspectives, because everyone has their own perception of art, especially contemporary art. Therefore, this form of conducting guided tours is very, very appropriate.’ --Manifesta 10 visitor

Manifesta 10 was able to generate a new audience for contemporary art in the City of St Petersburg also proving the strength of the Manifesta 10 art mediation attracted a far wider group than only the small network of art professionals, more than 40% of visitors have never visited a contemporary art exhibition before. A positive change for the State Hermitage Museum was that 70% of Manifesta 10 visitors were up to 35 years of age.

Half of the audience was from St Petersburg and a quarter from other regions of Russia and the remaining visitors came from across the world, most from Europe.