Futurism is a modernistavant-gardemovement in literature and part of the Futurism art movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century. It made its official literature debut with the publication of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's Manifesto of Futurism (1909). Futurist poetry
is characterised by unexpected combinations of images and by its
hyper-concision (in both economy of speech and actual length). Futurist theatre
also played an important role within the movement and is distinguished
by scenes that are only a few sentences long, an emphasis on nonsensical
humour, and attempts to examine and subvert traditions of theatre via parody and other techniques. Longer forms of literature, such as the novel, have no place in the Futurist aesthetic of speed and compression.
Futurist literature primarily focuses on seven aspects: intuition,
analogy, irony, abolition of syntax, metrical reform, onomatopoeia, and
essential/synthetic lyricism. The ideals of the futurists expanded to
their sculptures and painting styles as well; they were not fond of the
cubism movement in France or the renaissance era progression (in their
point of view, emasculation) and would often preach going back to old
fashioned values in their manifestos and articles as well as their
artwork.
Although the movement was founded with manifestos written by men there
were responses to Marinetti in particular from women whom considered
themselves traditional feminists and did not see the previous
renaissance movement as a shift towards emasculation, but relied too
much on the traditional titles of "men" and "women" that pigeon holed
society into believing they couldn't be empathetic and that a woman
couldn't be vigorous.
In Marinetti's 1909 manifesto, Marinetti calls for the reawakening of
"divine intuition" that "after hours of relentless toil" allows for the
"creative spirit seems suddenly to shake off its shackles and become
prey to an incomprehensible spontaneity of conception and execution".
Soffici had a more earthly reasoning. Intuition was the means by
which creation took place. He believed that there could be no
abstraction of the values of futurist literature in logical terms.
Rather, art was a language in and of itself that could only be expressed
in that language. Any attempt to extrapolate from the literature
resulted "in the evaluation not of artistic qualities but of extraneous
matters".
As such, the spontaneous creation brought by intuition freed one from
abstracting (and therefore adding erroneous material into the
literature) and allowed on to speak in the language of art.
In this way, Futurists rallied against "intellectualistic literature…[and] intelligible poetry".
However, this idea is different from anti-intellectualism. They were
not hostile to intellectual approaches, but just the specific
intellectual approach that poetry had taken for so many years.
Therefore, they often rejected any form of tradition as it had been
tainted with the previous intellectual approaches of the past.
Analogy
Analogy's
purpose in Futurist writing was to show that everything related to one
another. They helped to unveil this true reality lying underneath the
surface of existence. That is to say, despite what the experience might
show one, everything is in fact interconnected. The more startling the
comparison, the more successful it is.
The means for creating these analogies is intuition. This
intuition is "the poet's peculiar quality in that it enables him to
discover analogies which, hidden to reason, are yet the essentials of
art". The discovering of analogies is made possible by intuition.
Now, Marinetti believed that analogies have always existed, but
earlier poets had not reached out enough to bring appropriately
disparate entities together. By creating a communion of two (or more)
seemingly unrelated objects, the poet pierces to the "essence of
reality". The farther the poet has to reach in terms of logical remoteness is in direct proportion to its efficacy.
As analogy thus plays such an important role, it "offers a
touchstone to gauge poetical values…: the power to startle. The artistic
criterion derived from analogy is stupefaction".
While an ordinary person's vision is colored by convention and
tradition, the poet can brush away this top layer to reveal the reality
below. The process of communicating the surprise is art while the
"stupefaction" is the reaction to this discovery. Thus, analogies are
the essence of poetry for the Futurists.
Irony
As the
Futurists advocated the aforementioned intuition and the bucking of
tradition, one might assume that they would suppress the use of irony.
On the contrary, irony proved to be "so old and forgotten that it looked
almost new when the dust was brushed away from it. What was new and
untried, at least more so than their principles and theories, were the
futurists' stylistic devices".
Abolition of syntax
Futurists
believed that the constraints of syntax were inappropriate to modern
life and that it did not truly represent the mind of the poet. Syntax
would act as a filter in which analogies had to be processed and so
analogies would lose their characteristic "stupefaction." By abolishing
syntax, the analogies would become more effective.
The practical realization of this ideal meant that many parts of speech
were discarded: Adjectives were thought to bring nuance in "a universe
which is…black and white";
the infinitive provided all the idea of an action one needed without
the hindrances of conjugation; substantives followed their linked
substantives without other words (by the notion of analogy).
Punctuation, moods, and tenses, also disappeared in order to be
consistent with analogy and "stupefaction."
However, the Futurists were not truly abolishing syntax. White
points out that since "The OED defines 'syntax' as 'the arrangement of
words in their proper forms' by which their connection and relation in a
sentence are shown".
The Futurists were not destroying syntax in that sense. Marinetti in
truth advocated a number of "substantial, but nevertheless selective
modifications to existing syntax" and that the "Russian Futurists' idea
that they were 'shaking syntax loose'" is more accurate.
Metrical reform
Early
Futurist poetry relied on free verse as their poetical vehicle.
However, free verse "was too thoroughly bound up with tradition and too
fond of producing…stale effects"
to be effective. Furthermore, by using free verse, the Futurist
realized they would be working under the rules of syntax and therefore
interfering with intuition and inspiration.
In order to break free of the shackles of meter, they resorted to what they called "parole in libertá (word autonomy)".
Essentially, all ideas of meter were rejected and the word became the
main unit of concern instead of the meter. In this way, the Futurists
managed to create a new language free of syntax punctuation, and metrics
that allowed for free expression.
For example, in the poem entitled "Studio" by Soffici, he
"describes the artist's studio—and by extension, modern man himself—as
becoming a 'radiotelefantastic cabin open to all messages', the sense of
wonder her being transmitted by the portmanteau neologism:
'readotelefantastica'".
Here all notions of familiar language have been abandoned and in their
place a new language has emerged with its own vocabulary.
Onomatopoeia
There were four forms of onomatopoeia
that the Futurists advocated: direct, indirect, integral, and abstract.
The first of these four is the usually onomatopoeia seen in typical
poetry, e.g. boom, splash, tweet. They convey the most realistic
translation of sound into language. Indirect onomatopoeia "expressed the
subjective responses to external conditions".
Integral onomatopoeia was "the introduction of any and every sound irrespective of its similarity to significant words".
This meant that any collection of letters could represent a sound. The
final form of onomatopoeia did not reference external sounds or
movements like the aforementioned versions of onomatopoeia. Rather, they
tried to capture the internal motions of the soul.
Essential/synthetic lyricism
In
order to better provide stark, contrasting, analogies, the Futurist
literature promoted a kind of hyper-conciseness. It was dubbed essential
and synthetic lyricism. The former refers to a paring down of any and
all superfluous objects while the latter expresses an unnatural
compactness of the language unseen elsewhere.
This idea explains where poetry became the preferred literary medium of
Futurism and why there are no Futurist novels (since novels are neither
pared down nor compressed).
Futurism in the theatre
Traditional theatre
often served as a target for Futurists because of its deep roots in
classical societies. In its stead, the Futurists exalted the variety theatre, vaudeville, and music hall because, they argued, it "had no tradition; it was a recent discovery".
Vaudevillian acts aligned themselves well to the notions of
"stupefaction" as there was the desire to surprise and excite the
audience. Furthermore, the heavy use of machinery attracted the
Futurists, as well as Vaudevillian acts' tendency to "destroy" the
masterpieces of the past through parody and other forms of depreciation.
By adding other Futurist ideals mentioned above, they firmly
rooted their beliefs into theatre. They wanted to blur the line between
art and life in order to reach below the surface to reality. In
practice, this manifested itself in various ways:
"Collaboration between the public and the actors was to be
developed to the point of indistinction of roles—such cooperating
confusion was to be partly impromptu…e.g. chairs were to be covered with
glue so that ladies' gowns would stick to them; and tickets sold in
such a way as to bring side by side men of the extreme right and those
of the extreme left, prudes and prostitutes, teachers and pupils.
Sneezing powders, sudden darkening of the hall, and alarm signals were
all means to insure the proper functioning of this universal human
farce".
However, the most important aspect of the work was the discrediting
of the great works of theatre. These new theatrical ideal of the
Futurists helped to establish a new genre of theatre: the synthetic
play.
Synthetic play
This
type of play took the idea of compression to an extreme, where "a brief
performance in which entire acts were reduced to a few sentences, and
scenes to a handful of words. No sentiments, no psychological
development, no atmosphere, no suggestiveness. Common sense was
banished, or rather, replaced by nonsense".
There did exist some plays similar to this before the Futurists, but
they did not conform to the Futurist agenda. The creator of the first
modern synthetic play is thought to be Verlaine, with his aptly titled
work Excessive Haste.
Futurism in Art Work
It
took some time during the development of the movement to take shape in
all the areas the futurists wanted to explore in order to visually
represent their message especially in two-dimensional paintings. Their
hybrid-style of human and machine or showing a forward motion was common
due to their worship of the modern machine and technology. One of the
most popular representations of this is in the piece "Dynamism of the dog
by Giacomo Balla. This piece shows a dog being walked on a lease and
rather than the typical four-legged representation the dog has mutliple
feet in a swishing type motion to suggest movement. This piece along
with the others that followed was referred to as "Dynamism": "No single
object is separate from its background or another object."
Examples
Excerpt from Marinetti's free verse poem To a Racing Car
Veemente dio d’una razza d’acciaio,
Automobile ebbra di spazio,
che scalpiti e fremi d’angoscia
rodendo il morso con striduli denti
Formidabile mostro giapponese,
dagli occhi di fucina,
nutrito di fiamma
e d’olî minerali,
avido d’orizzonti, di prede siderali
Io scateno il tuo cuore che tonfa diabolicamente,
scateno i tuoi giganteschi pneumatici,
per la danza che tu sai danzare
via per le bianche strade di tutto il mondo!
Vehement god from a race of steel,
Automobile drunk with space,
Trampling with anguish, bit between your strident teeth!
O formidable Japanese monster with forge,
Nourished with flame and mineral oils,
Hungry for horizons and sidereal prey,
I unleash your heart to the diabolical vroom-vroom
And your giant radials, for the dance
You lead on the white roads of the world.
An art manifesto is a public declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of an artist or artistic movement. Manifestos are a standard feature of the various movements in the modernist
avant-garde and are still written today. Art manifestos are sometimes
in their rhetoric intended for shock value, to achieve a revolutionary
effect. They often address wider issues, such as the political system.
Typical themes are the need for revolution, freedom (of expression) and
the implied or overtly stated superiority of the writers over the status
quo.
The manifesto gives a means of expressing, publicising and recording
ideas for the artist or art group—even if only one or two people write
the words, it is mostly still attributed to the group name.
In 1855 Gustave Courbet wrote a Realist manifesto for the introduction to the catalogue of his independent, personal exhibition. And in 1886 the Symbolist Manifesto was published in the French newspaper Le Figaro by the poet and essayist Jean Moréas.
The first art manifesto of the 20th century was introduced with the Futurists in Italy in 1909, followed by the Cubists, Vorticists, Dadaists and the Surrealists:
the period up to World War II created what are still the best known
manifestos. Although they never stopped being issued, other media such
as the growth of broadcasting tended to sideline such declarations. Due
to the internet there has been a resurgence of the form, and many new
manifestos are now appearing to a potential worldwide audience. The Stuckists have made particular use of this to start a worldwide movement of affiliated groups.
Manifestos typically consist of a number of statements, which are
numbered or in bullet points and which do not necessarily follow
logically from one to the next. Tristan Tzara's explanation of the manifesto (Feeble Love & Bitter Love, II) captures the spirit of many:
A manifesto is a communication made
to the whole world, whose only pretension is to the discovery of an
instant cure for political, astronomical, artistic, parliamentary,
agronomical and literary syphilis. It may be pleasant, and good-natured,
it's always right, it's strong, vigorous and logical. Apropos of logic,
I consider myself very likeable.
Concept
Before
the early 20th century, the manifesto was almost exclusively a
declaration with political aims. The intention of artists adopting the
form, therefore, is to indicate that they are employing art as a
political tool.
The art manifesto has two main goals. The first is to define and
criticize a paradigm in contemporary art or culture; the second is to
define a set of aesthetic values to counter this paradigm. Often,
manifestos aspire to be works of art in their own right; for instance,
many manifesto writers intend for their texts to be performed. Other
manifestos cannot be fully appreciated simply as written statements
because they rely heavily on graphic design for communication, a common
feature in Dada manifestos. Several artists have written manifestos
about artistic mediums not their own.
Historically, there has been a strong parallel between the art
manifesto and the political manifesto. It was not uncommon for manifesto
writers of the early 20th century to also be politically active. In
Italy, Futurist founder Filippo Tomasso Marinetti ran for office, and
both Russian and Italian Futurists issued political manifestos. In
England, Vorticist Wyndham Lewis supported the Suffragettes, while in
France, Surrealist André Breton supported the Communist party. Often,
however, these political organizations rejected the artists’ attention;
in other cases, artists were censored and persecuted by European
authoritarian governments, like Fascist Italy and Communist Russia,
which institutionally rejected the avant-garde.
Pre-1900
Realist Manifesto 1855
Gustave Courbet
wrote a Realist manifesto for the introduction to the catalogue of his
independent, personal exhibition, 1855, echoing the tone of the period's
political manifestos. In it he asserts his goal as an artist "to
translate the customs, the ideas, the appearance of my epoch according
to my own estimation."
Symbolist Manifesto 1886
In 1886 the Symbolist Manifesto was published in the French newspaper Le Figaro by the poet and essayist Jean Moréas. It defined and characterized Symbolism
as a style whose "goal was not the ideal, but whose sole purpose was to
express itself for the sake of being expressed." It names Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé, and Paul Verlaine as the three leading poets of the movement.
The Futurist Manifesto, written by the Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, was published in the Italian newspaper Gazzetta dell'Emilia in Bologna on February 5, 1909, then in French as Manifeste du futurisme in the newspaper Le Figaro on February 20, 1909. It initiated an artistic philosophy, Futurism,
that was a rejection of the past, and a celebration of speed,
machinery, violence, youth and industry; it was also an advocation of
the modernization and cultural rejuvenation of Italy.
Since the founding manifesto did not contain a positive artistic
programme, the Futurists attempted to create one in their subsequent Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painting (1914).
This committed them to a "universal dynamism", which was to be directly
represented in painting and sculpture. Objects in reality were not
separate from one another or from their surroundings: "The sixteen
people around you in a rolling motor bus are in turn and at the same
time one, ten four three; they are motionless and they change places...
The motor bus rushes into the houses which it passes, and in their turn
the houses throw themselves upon the motor bus and are blended with it."
Du "Cubisme", written in 1912 by Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger, was the first major theoretical text on Cubism. The book was illustrated with works by Gleizes, Metzinger, Paul Cézanne, Fernand Léger, Juan Gris, Francis Picabia, Marcel Duchamp, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, André Derain and Marie Laurencin. In this highly influential treatise Gleizes and Metzinger explicitly related the concept of 'multiple perspective' to the Bergsonian
sense of time. The faceted treatment of physical objects and space
blurred the distinctions between subject and abstraction, between
representation and non-objectivity. Effects of non-Euclidean geometry were used to convey a psychophysical sense of fluidity of consciousness. Du "Cubisme"
introduced the concept of 'simultaneity' into the theoretical framework
of Cubism. It was in part a concept born out of a conviction based on
the authors understanding of Henri Poincaré
and Bergson that the separation or distinction between space and time
should be comprehensively challenged. It was based both on philosophical
and scientific ideas, on Riemannian geometry and the relativity of knowledge, contradicting notions of absolute truth.
These ideas were disseminated and debated in the widely available
publication, and read by writers and artists associated with the advent
of modernism.
Published in Les Homme du jour in 1913, it has never been clear whether this was a sincere manifesto of the new school of amorphism, or a parody.
Vorticist Manifesto 1914
Extracts from the Vorticists'BLAST manifesto were published in their magazine Blast, number 1, on June 20, 1914, and then in Blast, number 2, in July 1915.
Suprematist Manifesto 1915
In 1915, Kazimir Malevich laid down the foundations of Suprematism when he published his manifesto, From Cubism to Suprematism.
Dada Manifesto 1916
Hugo Ball recited the first Dada manifesto at Cabaret Voltaire on July 14, 1916.
The second Dada manifesto was recited by Tristan Tzara at the Salle Meise on March 23, 1918, and published in Dada, No. 3 (Zurich, December 1918).
The first Surrealist manifesto was written by the French writer André Breton in 1924 and released to the public 1925. The document defines Surrealism as:
Psychic automatism
in its pure state, by which one proposes to express -- verbally, by
means of the written word, or in any other manner -- the actual
functioning of thought. Dictated by the thought, in the absence of any
control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern.
Mario Sironi was motivated by the political ideals of Italian Fascism more than any specific artistic movement. Working on art for the regime's newspaper, Il Popolo d'Italia,
Sironi eventually contributed by creating murals for the 1932
Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution. Afterwards, Sironi signed the Manifesto of Mural Painting in 1933. Sironi continued to work exclusively on murals until after WWII.
Manifesto: Towards a Free Revolutionary Art 1938
Towards a Free Revolutionary Art was written by surrealist André Breton and Marxist Leon Trotsky as a reaction against the Soviet Union's mandated art.
The Mystical Manifesto (Manifeste Mystique in French) was written in 1951 by Salvador Dalí. "Dalí confirmed that confirmed that he is an ex-surrealist
and in favor of religious paintings. Dalí said his role in the art of
nuclear mysticism was to 'explain and accelerate the process." Dalí's preference during this period shifted to representational art, in spite of the rise of abstractionism.
Written by Gustav Metzger in 1964, this was given as a lecture to the Architectural Association, and taken over by students as an artistic "Happening". One of Metzger's Ealing College students was Pete Townshend, who later cited Metzger's concepts as an influence for his famous guitar-smashing during performances of The Who.
We use the term "neo-concrete" to differentiate ourselves from
those committed to non-figurative "geometric" art (neo-plasticism,
constructivism, suprematism, the school of Ulm) and particularly the
kind of concrete art that is influenced by a dangerously acute
rationalism. In the light of their artistic experience, the painters,
sculptors, engravers and writers participating in this first
Neo-concrete Exhibition came to the conclusion that it was necessary to
evaluate the theoretical principles on which concrete art has been
founded, none of which offers a rationale for the expressive potential
they feel their art contains."
Manifesto of Industrial Painting 1959
"Manifesto of Industrial Painting: For a unitary applied art", written by Giuseppe Pinot-Gallizio, in August 1959, was originally published in Italian in Notizie Arti Figurative No. 9 (1959). Shortly afterwards it was published in Internationale Situationniste no.3
in a French translation. It was translated into English in 1997 by
Molly Klein. It has only 70 points and is written a grand utopian
rhetorical manner, with statements such as, "A new, ravenous force of
domination will push men toward an unimaginable epic poetry." One of its
themes is the reconciliation of industry and nature:
The return to nature with modern instrumentation will allow man,
after thousands of centuries, to return to the places where Paleolithic
hunters overcame great fear; modern man will seek to abandon his own,
accumulated in the idiocy of progress, on contact with humble things,
which nature in her wisdom has conserved as a check on the immense
arrogance of the human mind.
Counterculture 1960–75
Manifestos in the 1960s reflected the changing social and political attitudes of the times: the general ferment of "counterculture" revolution to overthrow the existing order and the particular rise of feminism and Black Power, as well as the pioneering of new art forms such as body art and performance art.
Situationist Manifesto 1960
The Situationist International
was founded at Cosio d’Arroscia April 27, 1957, by eight members, who
wanted a revolutionary art with a state of constant transformation, and
hence newness, as well as abolishing the gap between art and life. The
manifesto espousing this was issued May 17, 1960, and reprinted in Internationale Situationniste
number 4 in June 1960. It advocated the "new human force" against
technology and the "dissatisfaction of its possible uses in our
senseless social life", stating "We will inaugurate what will
historically be the last of the crafts. The role of amateur-professional
situationist—of anti-specialist—is again a specialization up to the
point of economic and mental abundance, when everyone becomes an
'artist'". Its final sentence is: "Such are our goals, and these will be
the future goals of humanity."
This manifesto, written by Yves Klein, has been copyrighted since 1989 by the Gagosian Gallery.
It begins with the prompts for the later statements in the manifesto,
the first line being, "Due to the fact that I have painted monochromes
for fifteen years". It is a meditation by the artist about his work and
life:
An artist always feels uneasy when called upon to speak of his
own work. It should speak for itself, particularly when it is valid.
What can I do? Stop now?
No, what I call "the indefinable pictorial sensibility" absolutely escapes this very personal solution.
Once, in 1946, while still an adolescent, I was to sign my name
on the other side of the sky during a fantastic "realistico-imaginary"
journey. That day, as I lay stretched upon the beach of Nice, I began to
feel hatred for birds which flew back and forth across my blue,
cloudless sky, because they tried to bore holes in my greatest and most
beautiful work.
Birds must be eliminated.
He ends with an affirmation that he is "ready to dive into the void".
I Am For An Art... Manifesto, 1961
Claes Oldenburg, a Pop artist, reacting against Abstract Expressionism, along with other young artists.
The Manifesto ‘I am for an Art’ was originally made to be included in
the catalogue of the 'Environments, Situations and Spaces’ exhibition.
Each of the statements begin with 'I am for an art...'.
The following quote is from the first two statement in his poetical manifesto:
"I am for an art that is political-erotical-mystical, that does something other than sit on its ass in a museum. I am for an art that grows up not knowing it is art at all, an art given the chance of having a starting
point of zero... "
Fluxus Manifesto 1963
Written by George Maciunas, this short hand-printed document consists of three paragraphs interspersed with collage
elements from dictionary definitions related to "flux". It is written
in lower case, with upper case for certain key phrases, some underlined.
Its first paragraph is:
Purge the world of bourgeois sickness, "intellectual",
professional and commercialized culture, purge the world of dead art,
imitation, artificial art, abstract art, illusionistic art, mathematical
art, — purge the world of "Europanism"!
It advocates revolution, "living art, anti-art" and "non art reality
to be grasped by all peoples, not only critics, dilettantes and
professionals."
SCUM, by Valerie Solanas,
is an acronym for the "Society for Cutting up Men" and the manifesto
was not specifically about art. However, it has become part of art
history, because it was published in 1968, the same year that Solanas,
who had spent time in Andy Warhol's
"Factory", shot and nearly killed him. It also has sections that
address art ideas. Solanas spent her last years as a street prostitute
and died in 1988.
It is a document of just over 11,000 words. Its tone and basic
theme are evident from the title, but it is not quite as clear cut as it
seems and some women are admitted to be as bad as men (women artists,
for example). SCUM wants to "destroy all useless and harmful objects —
cars, store windows, "Great Art", etc." In a section on "'Great Art' and
'Culture'" it states:
The male 'artist' attempts to solve his dilemma of not being
able to live, of not being female, by constructing a highly artificial
world in which the male is heroized, that is, displays female traits,
and the female is reduced to highly limited, insipid subordinate roles,
that is, to being male.
The male 'artistic' aim being, not to communicate (having nothing
inside him he has nothing to say), but to disguise his animalism, he
resorts to symbolism and obscurity ('deep' stuff). The vast majority of
people, particularly the 'educated' ones, lacking faith in their own
judgment, humble, respectful of authority ('Daddy knows best'), are
easily conned into believing that obscurity, evasiveness,
incomprehensibility, indirectness, ambiguity and boredom are marks of
depth and brilliance ...
Absorbing 'culture' is a desperate, frantic attempt to groove in an
ungroovy world, to escape the horror of a sterile, mindless, existence.
'Culture' provides a sop to the egos of the incompetent, a means of
rationalizing passive spectating; they can pride themselves on their
ability to appreciate the 'finer' things, to see a jewel where this is
only a turd (they want to be admired for admiring).
Maintenance Art Manifesto 1969
The
full title of the manifesto is "Maintenance Art—Proposal for an
Exhibition"; it is considered a seminal document of feminist art. Mierle Laderman Ukeles
was pregnant at the time, and decided to reinterpret household chores
by becoming a "maintenance artist", where she would "perform" them.
Through this such "maintenance" revealed itself as an important
condition for freedom and social functioning and she extended the idea
beyond feminism to projects like the 11 month Touch Sanitation, involving 8,500 New York workers. More recently she has addressed a landfill site on Staten Island.
The manifesto was followed by a questionnaire (1973–76) and was
concerned with making art of what would normally be seen as routine,
mundane chores. She wrote, "After the revolution, who is going to pick
up the garbage on Monday morning?". She followed this up with a
"Sanitation Manifesto!" (1984) The Maintenance Manifesto stated:
Maintenance is a drag; it takes all the fucking time (lit.) The
mind boggles and chafes at the boredom. The culture confers lousy status
on maintenance jobs--minimum wages, housewives — no pay. Clean your
desk, wash the dishes, clean the floor, wash your clothes, wash your
toes, change the baby's diaper, finish the report, correct the typos,
mend the fence, keep the customer happy, throw out the stinking garbage,
watch out don't put things in your nose, what shall I wear, I have no
sox, pay your bills, don't litter, save string, wash your hair, change
the sheets, go to the store, I'm out of perfume, say it again — he
doesn't understand, seal it again — it leaks, go to work, this art is
dusty, clear the table, call him again, flush the toilet, stay young.
The Romantic Manifesto 1969
The Romantic Manifesto is a collection of essays by philosopher and novelist Ayn Rand, published under a single title in 1969. A revised edition was published in 1975. The essays explain the Objectivist
perspective on art, originated by Ayn Rand. The term "Romantic" does
not refer does not relate to the concept of love and is instead a
reference to the Romantic Era,
an art movement prominent in the late 18th century and early-to-mid
19th century. Rand sought to reawaken this movement in contemporary
culture, claiming that it did not exist in her lifetime, while rejecting
the elements of it that were anathema to Objectivist philosophy:
THIS
MANIFESTO IS NOT ISSUED IN THE NAME OF AN ORGANIZATION OR A MOVEMENT. I
SPEAK ONLY FOR MYSELF. THERE IS NO ROMANTIC MOVEMENT TODAY. IF THERE IS
TO BE ONE IN THE ART OF THE FUTURE, THIS BOOK WILL HAVE HELPED IT TO
COME INTO BEING.
AfriCobra Manifesto 1970
Afri-Cobra was a black artist collective founded in the late 1960s by Jeff Donaldson and based in Chicago. He helped organise international shows of black artists and wrote influential manifestos.
AfriCobra is an acronym for "African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists".
This was derived from combining the term for Africa with "Cobra", the
"Coalition of Black Revolutionary Artists". The manifesto stated the
groups objectives to be the development of a new African American art,
involving social responsibility, community artistic involvement and
promotion of pride in Black identity. There were parallels with African
American musical innovations, and the advocacy of a complementary
aesthetic involving sublime imagery and high-key colours.
WAR Manifestos early 1970s
WAR is an acronym for "Women Artists in Revolution" of which Nancy Spero was a member. Prior to this in 1966–70 she had created a series of anti-Vietnam War
"manifestos" which were images created with water paints and inks on
paper. She then attended AWC (Art Workers Coalition) meetings, which had
men and women members, and became part of WAR, which was an offshoot.
She said, "I loved it. I was so angry at that time about so many things,
especially about not being able to get my art out, to get people to
look. I thought, "WAR"— that's it. We started to organize some actions
and protests and wrote manifestos. For example, a few of us marched into
the Museum of Modern Art and demanded equality for women artists. Then,
I joined another, the Ad Hoc Committee of Women Artists. It all went
very fast in those days."
Women's Art: A Manifesto 1972
Valie Export is a Viennese performance artist who worked with the Actionists
and catalogued their events. She did her own confrontational body art,
with a philosophy of "Feminist Actionism", inviting people to touch her
in the street. She issued "written manifestos predicting with
vengeance the future of women's art" and "made important theoretical
contributions to communicating a personal feminism in performance. She
felt that it was important politically to create art. 'I knew that if I
did it naked, I would really change how the
(mostly male) audience would look at me.'"
Collectif d'Art Sociologique manifesto 1974
The French Sociological art Collective was founded by Fred Forest, Jean-Paul Thénot and Hervé Fischer and had their manifesto published in the newspaper Le Monde.
Its main purpose was using sociology to underpin artistic actions, or
using artistic actions to elucidate sociological phenomena. One such
action was the auctioning of a "artistic square meter" in 1976 to spoof
the inflation of prices in the housing and art markets.
The collective made heavy use of mass media and live performance using
video, telephones, etc. The group was dissolved in 1981, though some
of its tenets were brought by Fred Forest and Mario Costa with the Communication aesthetics movement of 1983.
This is a four-page document illustrated with nine black and
white images of the artist's paintings, collages and multimedia,
published in Montreal in 1975.
"My art is a painted metaphor; the past machine of a perpetual second,
the fossil emotion of an infinite longing, the magic desire evolving on
the broken axis of the compressed space, reflected in the form of inner,
personal landscapes", writes Hartal in the manifesto. "Art ought to be
total", he suggests. "The biotic separated from the geometrical is
arbitrary, and ignores the human nature." The idea of "Lyrical
Conceptualism is based on the wholeness of the psychological
coordinate", he says. It "derives from the id, ego and superego"; an
"art in which the primarily twofold character of the artist's view
evolves into a lyrical, intuitive and conceptual triad". In The Brush
and the Compass: The Interface Dynamics of Art and Science (Lanham:
University Press of America, 1988, 341 pp), Hartal discusses in more
detail the theory of Lyrical Conceptualism or Lyco art.
Punk and cyber 1976–1998
The rise of the punk
movement with its basic and aggressive DIY attitude had a significant
input into art manifestos, and this is reflected even in the titles.
Some of the artists overtly identified with punk through music,
publishing or poetry performance. There is also an equivalent "shocking"
interpretation of feminism which contradicts the non-objectification
advocated in the 1960s. Then the growing presence of the computer age
began to assert itself in art proclamations as in society.
Crude Art Manifesto 1978
Artist Charles Thomson promoted the Crude Art Manifesto 1978.
This was posted in Maidstone Art College by Charles Thomson, then a student at the college. 21 years later he co-wrote the Stuckist manifestos with Billy Childish. Thomson was also a member of the punk-based The Medway Poets.
The manifesto rejects "department store" art and "elitist" gallery art,
as well as sophistication and skill which are "easily obtainable ...
and are used both industrially and artistically to conceal a poverty of
content." The priority is stated to be "the exploration and expression
of the human spirit".
At this time Stewart Home operated as a one-person movement
"Generation Positive", founding a punk band called White Colours and
publishing an art fanzine Smile, which mostly contained art
manifestos for the "Generation Positive". The rhetoric of these
resembled the 1920s Berlin Dadaist manifestos. His idea was that other
bands round the world should also call themselves White Colours and
other magazines be titled Smile. The first part of the book Neoist Manifestos/The Art Strike Papers featured abridged versions of his manifesto-style writings from Smile.
International Association of Astronomical Artists Manifesto 1982
The
basic tenet of the IAAA is the depiction of space (as in the cosmos)
through realist painting. They disassociate themselves from science
fiction and fantasy artists: "a firm foundation of knowledge and
research is the basis for each painting. Striving to accurately depict
scenes which are at present beyond the range of human eyes". The group now has over 120 members representing 20 countries.
The whole title is "the Why Cheap Art? manifesto". It is a single
sheet, issued by the Bread and Puppet Theater "in direct response to
the business of art and its growing appropriation by the corporate
sector." There are seventeen statements, most of them beginning "Art is"
and ending with an exclamation mark, set out mostly in upper case,
sometimes mixed in with lower case, in different typefaces which get
bolder through the leaflet until the final statement of a large HURRAH.
It starts:
People have been thinking too long that art is a privilege of the museums & the rich.
Art is not business!
It stresses the positive nature of art which is beneficial to all and
should be available to all, using poetic images such as "Art is like
green trees", and urging, "Art fights against war & stupidity! ...
Art is cheap!
This has the full title of "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science,
Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth-Century." Donna
Haraway is a cultural historian. She advocates the development of
cyborgs ("cybernetic organisms") as the way forward for a post-gender
society. This had a significant effect initially amongst academics. VNS
Matrix, a group of Australian women artists and British cultural
historian, Sadie Plant,
established a cyberfeminist movement in 1994. From 1997, the Old Boys
Network (OBN) has organised "Cyberfeminist Internationals".
The manifesto is five paragraphs, each with a subtitle, the first
of which is "Art for All", summing up the popularist intent of their
manifesto:
We want Our Art to speak across the barriers of knowledge
directly to People about their Life and not about their knowledge of
art. The twentieth century has been cursed with an art that cannot be
understood. The decadent artists stand for themselves and their chosen
few, laughing at and dismissing the normal outsider. We say that
puzzling, obscure and form-obsessed art is decadent and a cruel denial
of the Life of People.
There is also an intent to change people, but "The art-material must
be subservient to the meaning and purpose of the picture." It states:
We want to learn to respect and honour "the whole". The content
of mankind is our subject and our inspiration. We stand each day for
good traditions and necessary changes. We want to find and accept all
the good and bad in ourselves.
The conclusion is an affirmation of "our life-search for new meanings and purpose to give to life."
The manifesto was signed by Veronica Vera and Candida Royalle (both ex porn stars who had then directed their own porn movies), Annie Sprinkle (who gives explicit sexual one woman shows) and performance artist Frank Moore, among other significant artists who use sex in their work.
In 7 short points, it founds an art movement, which "celebrates sex as
the nourishing, life-giving force. We embrace our genitals as part, not
separate, from our spirits." It advocates the "attitude of
sex-positivism" and wishes to "communicate our ideas and emotions ... to
have fun, heal the world and endure."
A Cyberfeminist Manifesto for the 21st Century, 1991
VNS Matrix was a cyberfeminist art collective founded in
Adelaide, Australia, in 1991. Their manifesto, written in 1991, was
translated over the years into many languages including Italian, French,
Spanish, Russian, Japanese and Finnish. It begins:
we are the modern cunt
positive anti reason
unbounded unleashed unforgiving
we see art with our cunt we make art with our cunt
The ____________ Manifesto proposed an interactive,
fill-in-the-blanks view of prohibitions and claims to be made about art
and art movements. It was an early interactive piece of net art that
appeared in webzines and in newsgroups, inviting participation. It
begins:
Today, ____________ itself is obsolete.
The manifesto ends with a Reset button. The text is sampled
from Tristian Tzara's Dada manifestos, but key pieces from the original
text have been omitted and replaced with blanks to be filled-in.
It is one of the earliest manifestos to be published on the Internet as well as in print.
New Ink Art
Modern European ink painting is the European/Western contribution to the (mainly Asian) New Ink Art movement. It combines/merges Expressionism, Art Informel, Minimalism, Plein air work, Abstract Art (etc.) with typically East Asian formal reductive techniques (Ink wash painting), philosophy, materials, and concepts.
The original and completed one in form of an artist statement or agenda has been written in 1996 and dispatched to Tokyo
in 1997 via the Croatian Ministry of Culture, then to Vienna to the
Embassy of Japan and then to the Japanese Government in Tokyo. Based on
that (and other elements like university grades) Alfred Krupa have been granted a scholarship for postgraduate research in Japan in 1998. Croatia
and Japan established diplomatic relations in 1993 and he was the very
first Croatian painter to be granted by the Government of Japan.
After Krupa's application was formally dispatched the only thing left to
him was the first draft, a sketch of his proclamation and agenda. For
several years it was lost somewhere among other stuff in his family
apartment. As it is known the Krupa family have been evicted in 2010 and
he thought that it is lost forever as it was written on two pieces of
plain paper. But it was preserved among other items from their house in
one storage in very poor conditions. In 2017 the family was able to
retrieve part of personal belongings which has been at the time removed
to their garage. Recently, the painter was digging in his garage and by
chance, he has found those original writings from 1996!
It was scanned and retyped with corrected English grammar. It is the
manifesto which Alfred Krupa followed and expanded in over 20 years. It is also a document from the history of the International New Ink Art movement.
New Ink Art movement was for a long time considered a local (Hong
Kong) or regional or Chinese national artistic phenomena founded by Lui
Shou-Kwan /1919-1975/
(some still thinks about it in that way).
With these (and probably of other artists as well) activities concerning
Croatia-Japan in the last decade of the 20th century, it has become the
international movement.
Lui Shou-Kwan and his followers (up to the present times) reinterprets
Chinese ink art in the form of Western modernism. Krupa is doing
something essentially opposite/different from Shou-Kwan and his group,
he reinterprets Western modernism in the form of Chinese ink art.
At present it is not known is there any other manifesto concerning the
International New Ink Art movement, in the west, there is none, at least
not created in that time frame (the mid-1990s).
The original manuscript of Krupa's New Ink Art Manifesto from 1996 is the property of the documenta (exhibition) archiv, records and papers collection in Kassel (the access number docA-97).
Group Hangman was started by Billy Childish, Tracey Emin and two others in Medway, Kent
in 1983 for a short time. Fourteen years later it reformed with more
members (nearly all of whom later joined the Stuckists art group), but
without Emin. At this point Childish wrote 6 short manifestos, each
containing 7 – 12 statements. He says, "they were anarchic and
contradictory - my favourite!" Some of the ideas resurfaced in the Stuckist manifestos written two years later. Point 9 of Communication 0001 states:
Western art has been stupefying its audience into taking the
position of an admiring doormat. We, at Group Hangman however, intend to
wipe our mud-encrusted boots on the face of conceptual balderdash.
Style must be smashed ("Artistic talent is the only obstacle") and
the unacceptable must be embraced. The last communication, of only two
short sentences, was written in 2000 and recommends, "It is time for art
to grow up."
(A genre of the Transhumanist art movement whose manifesto was written in 1982)
This was written on January 1, 1997, and was apparently "on board the Cassini Huygens
spacecraft on its mission to Saturn." Following the statement "We are
transhumans", there is the explanation, "Transhumanist Art reflects an
extropic appreciation of aesthetics in a technologically enhanced
world." After the manifesto is a "FAQ", which states, "Transhumanist
Arts include creative works by scientists, engineers, technicians,
philosophers, athletes, educators, mathematicians, etc., who may not be
artists in the traditional sense, but whose vision and creativity are
integral to transhumanity." The Manifesto is based on a Transhumanist Art Statement
written in 1982. Cited as specific influences are "Abstract Art,
Performance Art, Kinetic Art, Cubism, Techno Art, science fiction and
Communications Art." Some collaborators of Vita-More's are named as Timothy Leary, Bill Viola and Francis Ford Coppola.
World Wide Web 1999–present
Widespread
access to the internet has created a new incentive for artists to
publish manifestos, with the knowledge that there is an instant
potential worldwide audience. The effect of the internet on art
manifestos has been described: "One could almost say we are living
through a new boom time for the manifesto. The Web allows almost anybody
to nail a broadsheet to the virtual wall for all to see."
Some of the manifestos also appear in print form; others only exist as
virtual text. It has also led to a great diversity of approaches, as
well as a noticeable trend looking back at earlier traditions of
Modernism or the Renaissance to create a present and future paradigm.
The Stuckists manifesto has become well known, though most others have
achieved little individual reputation or impact.
The Stuckists
have grown in eleven years from 13 artists in London to 209 groups in
48 countries, and claim, "Stuckism is the first significant art movement
to spread via the Internet" The first 3 points of their numbered eponymous manifesto proclaim "a quest for authenticity",
"painting is the medium of self discovery" and "a model of art which is
holistic". The 4th point states, "Artists who don't paint aren't
artists"; the 5th is, "Art that has to be in a gallery to be art isn't
art." Points are made against conceptual art, Britart, Charles Saatchi, art gimmicks and white wall galleries, while the amateur is hailed. The final point is:
Stuckism embraces all that it denounces. We only denounce that
which stops at the starting point — Stuckism starts at the stopping
point!
This manifesto is available on their web site in 7 languages. They have issued at least 8 other manifestos, including the Remodernist Manifesto (2000), which inaugurates "a new spirituality in art" (to replace Postmodernism's "scientific materialism, nihilism and spiritual bankruptcy"), the Turner Prize Manifesto, handed out in their demonstrations at Tate Britain and a Critique of Damien Hirst. The Tate gallery holds three of the manifestos. Spin-offs by other Stuckists include a Camberwell College of Arts Students for Stuckism manifesto (2000) and a teenagers' Underage Stuckists Manifesto (2006). In 2006, Allen Herndon published The Manifesto of the American Stuckists, whose content was challenged by the Los Angeles Stuckists group. There has also been an anti-Stuckist manifesto published in 2005 by the London Surrealist Group.
The Resurrection of Beauty: a manifesto for the future of art 2002-10
The Resurrection of Beauty manifesto was first published in 2010 by Galerie Provocatrice in Amsterdam for a related exhibit and film premiere.
Its purpose is to inspire resistance to pretenses in conceptual art
which seek to eliminate Beauty as a central concern in the future of
Art.
Two central lines from the manifesto are: "Beauty is the purpose of
art, just as a building is the purpose of architecture" and "The utility
of art is to inform us of Beauty, just as the utility of science is to
inform us of truth."
How to Write an Avant-Garde Manifesto (a Manifesto) 2006
An avant-garde manifesto that reviews avant-garde manifestos of the past hundred years, it was taped to the front door of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London in April 2006. It was later published online by ICA residents, the London Consortium.
A manifesto on filmmaking written by former Stuckist painter, photographer and filmmaker Jesse Richards that like the closely related Remodernism
manifesto, calls for a "new spirituality", but in this instance, in
relation to cinema. The manifesto proclaims a spiritual film to be "not
about religion. It is cinema concerned with humanity and an
understanding of the simple truths and moments of humanity. Spiritual
film is really ALL about these moments". Point 4 of the manifesto
discusses Japanese aesthetics in relation to the idea of Remodernist film: "The Japanese ideas of wabi-sabi (the beauty of imperfection) and mono no aware
(the awareness of the transience of things and the bittersweet feelings
that accompany their passing), have the ability to show the truth of
existence, and should always be considered when making the remodernist
film". The manifesto also criticizes filmmakers that shoot on video,
arguing that film, particularly Super-8 film "has a rawness, and an
ability to capture the poetic essence of life, that video has never been
able to accomplish" and also criticizes Stanley Kubrick's work, as being "dishonest and boring", as well as Dogme 95's
"pretentious checkist" of rules. Instead, the Remodernist film
philosophy seems to be somewhat anti-ego, with Richards noting that
"this manifesto should be viewed only as a collection of ideas and hints
whose author may be mocked and insulted at will". The manifesto was
recently translated into Turkish and published by the film website
Bakiniz, and is being translated into Polish and published by the Polish
underground art and culture magazine, RED.
This manifesto was written by the South African conceptual artist Conrad Bo, who believes the Superstroke Art Movement is the first internationally known art movement in Africa since the Fook Island art movement started by Walter Battiss. The manifesto is quite specific in what the Superstroke Art Movement want to achieve. Superstroke is short for the super expressive brush stroke.
The Manifesto for the Superstroke
Art Movement written by Conrad Bo is as follows: 1.Paintings should be
executed using expressive even violent brush strokes on at least some
part of the picture. 2.Should a photograph be used for a figurative
painting, the objection should not be Photorealism, but Expressionism.
3.If mediums such as pen, pencil, etc. are used, the pen and pencil
strokes must at least be overly expressive for it to be considered a
Superstroke picture. 4.Paintings can be executed in both the abstract
and figurative. 5.Subject matters such as Africa, light, dark, life and
death are encouraged. 6.Collage, Stencil and Calligraphy may be used for
impact. 7.The concept, Art for the sake of art, does not apply in
Superstroke. In Superstroke it is art for the sake of Superstroke, as
the artist must always strive for paintings rich in texture, or
excessive brush or pencil strokes.
The Metamodernist Manifesto was written by artist Luke Turner as "an exercise in simultaneously defining and embodying the metamodern spirit."
The manifesto recognised "oscillation to be the natural order of the
world" and called for an end to "the inertia resulting from a century of
modernist ideological naivety and the cynical insincerity of its
antonymous bastard child."
Instead, Turner proposed metamodernism as "the mercurial condition
between and beyond irony and sincerity, naivety and knowingness,
relativism and truth, optimism and doubt, in pursuit of a plurality of
disparate and elusive horizons," and concluded with a call to "go forth
and oscillate!" The manifesto formed the basis of LaBeouf, Rönkkö & Turner's collaborative art practice, after the actor Shia LaBeouf reached out to Turner in early 2014 after reading the text.
The Manifesto was written in 2014 and was published in Los Angeles Downtown News
weekly on September 28, 2015 (page 10).
It starts out in a typically dense fashion: "Excessive use of resources
in magnified state, by which one expresses: by means of two, or three
dimensional visual-creations, written, or pronounce words, or in any
other manner. As a reflection, examination, or investigation of the
capitalist system, exempt of aesthetical, legal, commercial, ethical, or
moral considerations."
It is to go beyond the usual, necessary, or proper limit or degree. To
have a certain urge ”to acquire material goods beyond one's needs and
often means.”. Excessivism, as a new global art movement, tends to be a commentary on the economic materialism.
Written in 2018 and published into magazines in 2019, the New Manifesto of Arts
was officially published in both Italian and English languages in 2020
by Zona publishing. It is considered the main bases of the Empathic
School movement (Empathism) arose in Italy on 2020. This Manifesto places Empathy at the middle of a vision of the self, in opposition with previous views of artists as confined from society.
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