Dancing is the best revenge

The comprehensive survey show Dancing is the best revenge by Melanie Manchot (b. 1966 in Witten, lives and works in London), on view at Märkisches Museum Witten, presents pivotal works by the artist from the past twenty years. The exhibtion includes the premiere of her new video work Golden Girls (2023), created in Bochum alongside the production of Liquid Skin.

In her photographic series, as well as in her film and video installations, the artist examines human connections to urban structures, situations, and architectures. Many works stage or document the charged relations arising between closeness and distance. In this sense, the exhibition design also directly addresses the issue of physical, analogue experiences with camera-based art. With sensitivity and care Melanie Manchot probes the interplay and relationships between the individual and the collective. Her works form a sustained enquiry into people’s identity constructs as temporary and provisional, raising questions about how we, as social beings, are constantly producing our identities anew.

In conjunction with her new work Liquid Skin at WERK°STADT, Dancing is the best revenge introduces us more thoroughly to the consistencies and diversities found in Melanie Manchot’s Œuvre.

The solo exhibition Dancing is the best revenge by Melanie Manchot is a cooperation between Urbane Künste Ruhr and Märkisches Museum Witten in the context of Ruhr Ding: Schlaf and is curated by Christoph Kohl.