Art manifestos, Marinetti – Futurism, Walter Gropius – Bauhaus, Tristan Tzara – Dadaism, Marina Abramovic. Why are manifestos commonly used by artists?
Marina Abramovic – Excerpt Artist manifesto
Why do we need manifests, principles, rules, guidelines?
Walter Gropius, Staatliche Bauhaus:
Architekten, Bildhauer, Maler, wir alle müssen zum Handwerk zurück! Denn es gibt keine „Kunst von Beruf“. Es gibt keinen Wesensunterschied zwischen dem Künstler und dem Handwerker. Der Künstler ist eine Steigerung des Handwerkers. Gnade des Himmels läßt in seltenen Lichtmomenten, die jenseits seines Wollens stehen, unbewußt Kunst aus dem Werk seiner Hand erblühen, die Grundlage des Werkmäßigen aber ist unerläßlich für jeden Künstler. Dort ist der Urquell des schöpferischen Gestaltens.
Eng: “Architects, sculptors, painters – we all must return to craftmanship! For there is no such thing as “art by profession”. There is no essential difference between the artist and the artisan. The artist is an exalted artisan.”
Tristan Tzara, Dada Manifesto, 1918:
The magic of a word—Dada—which has brought journalists to the gates of a world unforeseen, is of no importance to us. To put out a manifesto you must want: ABC to fulminate against 1, 2, 3 to fly into a rage and sharpen your wings to conquer and disseminate little abcs and big abcs, to sign, shout, swear, to organize prose into a form of absolute and irrefutable evidence, to prove your non plus ultra and maintain that novelty resembles life just as the latest-appearance of some whore proves the essence of God.
Marinetti, Manifesto of Futurism (1-4)
1. We want to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and rashness.
2. The essential elements of our poetry will be courage, audacity and revolt.
3. Literature has up to now magnified pensive immobility, ecstasy and slumber. We want to exalt movements of aggression, feverish sleeplessness, the double march, the perilous leap, the slap and the blow with the fist.
4. We declare that the splendor of the world has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing automobile with its bonnet adorned with great tubes like serpents with explosive breath … a roaring motor car which seems to run on machine-gun fire, is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace.
Manifest can offer a framework, it can seen as a method to set a number of objectives and perspectives from which an artist can perform and create their work. It can be understood and used as a set of beliefs that can be shared within a group, growing into a movement. It might be a way to mark an aesthetic paradigm shift. It can contribute to defining and setting a certain tone, approach or a way of understanding and perceiving art, objects or subjects.
It can be understood as a method to facilitate art, a method that can help structure the artistic creativity.
It can be understood as a method to facilitate art, a method that can help structure the artistic creativity. It can be guidelines or principles to live by. It is not far from what a research paradigm
a paradigm is an action of submitting to a view
a basic set of beliefs that guide action
A manifesto
Approach and meet your surroundings as raw and honest as possible.
Be fearlessly vulnerable towards your surroundings, in relationships and in the world.
Seek to continuously identify what your senses perceive.
Observe the properties of your sensory input.
You are a subject, an individual. Acknowledge that you are exactly that, a subject submitted to experiencing your surroundings through your body and senses.
Always aim to see the world through unclouded glasses.
Kaputte 