Artist Calls on Manifesta 16 to Remove Installation, Alleging Plagarism

An artist has demanded the organizers of Manifesta 16 remove an installation from the exhibition in Essen, Germany, alleging that a piece in the show plagiarizes one of her earlier works. 

The piece, titled Elevation and made by the Turkish sculptor Nasan Tur, consists of reclaimed church pews installed on their side inside St. Gertud Church and engraved with anonymous musings submitted by the public. Bochum-based artist Dorothee Bielfeld told the German outlet Waz that the Elevation’s central visual motif—meter-high upright pews, transformed by their reorientation into oblique towers—closely resembles her 2010 work Aufrichten (Raising Up), created for Ruhr.2010, a cultural campaign in Germany’s Ruhr region.

Elevation invites visitors to carve wishes, worries, and hopes into the church pews. Bielfeld’s Aufrichten also employs a participatory conceit: Visitors to Christ-König-Kirche could deposit slips of paper bearing their thoughts into pipes embedded in the wall.

The earlier work was installed in Hamburg’s Christ-König-Kirche and featured 29 wooden pews positioned upright; the effect, she said, was of being lost in a forest. Bielfeld told WAZ that she was “absolutely devastated” upon seeing images of Tur’s work at St. Gertrud’s Church. “I delved deeply into the subject of decommissioned churches,” she said of its creation. “Since then, I’ve focused on the repurposing of churches as well as the changing nature of worship services. So this is truly my area of expertise.”

She added that less than an hour after learning of Elevation, she contacted Manifesta 16 to request its removal from the exhibition. A spokesperson for Manifesta 16 said in a statement to the press that, while the installations bear “superficial” visual similarities, the biennial stands by a curatorial assessment by Leonie Herweg and René Block, who, “without prejudice,” deemed Tur’s work artistically independent. The curators also noted that Tur’s work was part of an ongoing, participatory project.

Tur denied Bielfeld’s accusations, describing them in an emailed statement to ARTnews as “false and baseless,” and adding that the media coverage of the controversy has affected him “deeply.” He continued: “As Ms. Bielfeld did not respond to a proposal for a face-to-face meeting between Manifesta and the curators—and I would have been happy to attend as well—but instead sent me a threatening letter via her lawyer, I have now had to engage a lawyer myself to protect myself.”

Manifesta opened in Germany’s Ruhr region on June 21 and runs through October 4. The latest edition of the nomadic European biennial unfolds this year across four cities—Duisburg, Essen, Gelsenkirchen, and Bochum—with 12 historic churches hosting site-specific installations. The curatorial framework focuses on reactivating these mostly disused spaces as opportunities for civic and cultural encounters.

ARTnews has contacted the organizers of Manifesta 16 for further comment.