An art manifesto is a public declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of an artist or artistic movement.

Manifesto A manifesto is a published declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of the issuer, be it an individual, group, political party or government. A manifesto usually accepts a previously published opinion or public consensus or promotes a ...

s are a standard feature of the various movements in the

modernist Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

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 Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( , , ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and t ...

wrote a Realist manifesto for the introduction to the catalogue of his independent, personal exhibition. And in 1886 the

Symbolist Manifesto The Symbolist Manifesto (French: ''Le Symbolisme'') was published on 18 September 1886 Lucie-Smith, Edward. (1972) ''Symbolist Art''. London: Thames & Hudson, p. 54. in the French newspaper ''Le Figaro'' by the Greek-born poet and essayist Jean M ...

was published in the French newspaper ''

Le Figaro ''Le Figaro'' () is a French daily morning newspaper founded in 1826. It is headquartered on Boulevard Haussmann in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. The oldest national newspaper in France, ''Le Figaro'' is one of three French Newspaper of recor ...

'' by the poet and essayist

Jean Moréas Jean Moréas (; born Ioannis A. Papadiamantopoulos, Ιωάννης Α. Παπαδιαμαντόπουλος; 15 April 1856 – 31 March 1910), was a Greek poet, essayist, and art critic, who wrote mostly in the French language but also in Greek du ...

. The first art manifesto of the 20th century was introduced with the Futurists in Italy in 1909, followed by the Cubists, Vorticists,

Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 192 ...

ists 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 Tristan Tzara (; ; born Samuel or Samy Rosenstock, also known as S. Samyro; – 25 December 1963) was a Romanian and French avant-garde poet, essayist and performance artist. Also active as a journalist, playwright, literary and art critic, comp ...

's explanation of the manifesto (''Feeble Love & Bitter Love, II'') captures the spirit of many:

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

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."The Metropolitan Museum of Art, ''Nineteenth–Century French Realism'', Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

Symbolist Manifesto 1886

In 1886 the

was published in the French newspaper ''

'' by the poet and essayist

. It defined and characterized

Symbolism Symbolism or symbolist may refer to: Arts * Symbolism (arts), a 19th-century movement rejecting Realism ** Symbolist movement in Romania, symbolist literature and visual arts in Romania during the late 19th and early 20th centuries ** Russian sym ...

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 Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist and art critic. His poems exhibit mastery in the handling of rhyme and rhythm, contain an exoticism inherited ...

Stéphane Mallarmé Stéphane Mallarmé ( , ; 18 March 1842 – 9 September 1898), pen name of Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of t ...

, and

Paul Verlaine Paul-Marie Verlaine (; ; 30 March 1844 – 8 January 1896) was a French poet associated with the Symbolist movement and the Decadent movement. He is considered one of the greatest representatives of the ''fin de siècle'' in international and F ...

as the three leading poets of the movement. Lucie-Smith, Edward. (1972) ''Symbolist Art''. London:

Thames & Hudson Thames & Hudson (sometimes T&H for brevity) is a publisher of illustrated books in all visually creative categories: art, architecture, design, photography, fashion, film, and the performing arts. It also publishes books on archaeology, history, ...

, p. 54.

Seminal 1909–45

Futurist Manifesto 1909, 1914

The Futurist Manifesto, written by the Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, was published in the Italian newspaper ''Gazzetta dell'Emilia'' in

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label=Emilian language, Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 1 ...

on February 5, 1909, then in French as ''Manifeste du futurisme'' in the newspaper ''

'' on February 20, 1909. It initiated an artistic philosophy,

Futurism Futurism ( it, Futurismo, link=no) was an Art movement, artistic and social movement that originated in Italy, and to a lesser extent in other countries, in the early 20th century. It emphasized dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, an ...

, 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 Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

. 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."

Cubist Manifesto 1912

Du "Cubisme", written in 1912 by

Albert Gleizes Albert Gleizes (; 8 December 1881 – 23 June 1953) was a French artist, theoretician, philosopher, a self-proclaimed founder of Cubism and an influence on the School of Paris. Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger wrote the first major treatise o ...

and

Jean Metzinger Jean Dominique Antony Metzinger (; 24 June 1883 – 3 November 1956) was a major 20th-century French painter, theorist, writer, critic and poet, who along with Albert Gleizes wrote the first theoretical work on Cubism. His earliest works, from 1 ...

, was the first major theoretical text on

Cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...

. The book was illustrated with works by Gleizes, Metzinger,

Paul Cézanne Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically d ...

Fernand Léger Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism (known as "tubism") which he gradually modified into a more figurative, po ...

Juan Gris José Victoriano González-Pérez (23 March 1887 – 11 May 1927), better known as Juan Gris (; ), was a Spanish painter born in Madrid who lived and worked in France for most of his active period. Closely connected to the innovative artistic ge ...

Francis Picabia Francis Picabia (: born Francis-Marie Martinez de Picabia; 22January 1879 – 30November 1953) was a French avant-garde painter, poet and typographist. After experimenting with Impressionism and Pointillism, Picabia became associated with Cubism ...

Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th century, he is ...

Georges Braque Georges Braque ( , ; 13 May 1882 – 31 August 1963) was a major 20th-century List of French artists, French painter, Collage, collagist, Drawing, draughtsman, printmaker and sculpture, sculptor. His most notable contributions were in his all ...

André Derain André Derain (, ; 10 June 1880 – 8 September 1954) was a French artist, painter, sculptor and co-founder of Fauvism with Henri Matisse. Biography Early years Derain was born in 1880 in Chatou, Yvelines, Île-de-France, just outside Paris ...

and Marie Laurencin. In this highly influential treatise Gleizes and Metzinger explicitly related the concept of 'multiple perspective' to the

Bergsonian Henri-Louis Bergson (; 18 October 1859 – 4 January 1941) was a French philosopherHenri Bergson. 2014. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 13 August 2014, from https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/61856/Henri-Bergson

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 In mathematics, non-Euclidean geometry consists of two geometries based on axioms closely related to those that specify Euclidean geometry. As Euclidean geometry lies at the intersection of metric geometry and affine geometry, non-Euclidean ...

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 Jules Henri Poincaré ( S: stress final syllable ; 29 April 1854 – 17 July 1912) was a French mathematician, theoretical physicist, engineer, and philosopher of science. He is often described as a polymath, and in mathematics as "The ...

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 Riemannian geometry is the branch of differential geometry that studies Riemannian manifolds, smooth manifolds with a ''Riemannian metric'', i.e. with an inner product on the tangent space at each point that varies smoothly from point to po ...

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 Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, ...

The Art of Noise 1913

Manifeste de l'école amorphiste 1913

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 Kazimir Severinovich Malevich ; german: Kasimir Malewitsch; pl, Kazimierz Malewicz; russian: Казими́р Севери́нович Мале́вич ; uk, Казимир Северинович Малевич, translit=Kazymyr Severynovych ...

laid down the foundations of

Suprematism Suprematism (russian: Супремати́зм) is an early twentieth-century art movement focused on the fundamentals of geometry (circles, squares, rectangles), painted in a limited range of colors. The term ''suprematism'' refers to an abstra ...

when he published his manifesto, ''From Cubism to Suprematism''.

Dada Manifesto 1916

Hugo Ball Hugo Ball (; 22 February 1886 – 14 September 1927) was a German author, poet, and essentially the founder of the Dada movement in European art in Zürich in 1916. Among other accomplishments, he was a pioneer in the development of sound poetry. ...

recited the first

manifesto at Cabaret Voltaire on July 14, 1916. The second Dada manifesto was recited by

at the Salle Meise on March 23, 1918, and published in Dada, No. 3 (Zurich, December 1918).

De Stijl 1918

Signed by

Theo van Doesburg Theo van Doesburg (, 30 August 1883 – 7 March 1931) was a Dutch artist, who practiced painting, writing, poetry and architecture. He is best known as the founder and leader of De Stijl. He was married to artist, pianist and choreographer Nel ...

, Robt. van 't Hoff, Vilmos Huszar, Antony Kok,

Piet Mondrian Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan (), after 1906 known as Piet Mondrian (, also , ; 7 March 1872 – 1 February 1944), was a Dutch painter and art theoretician who is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. He is known for being o ...

Georges Vantongerloo Georges Vantongerloo (24 November 1886, Antwerp – 5 October 1965, Paris) was a Belgian abstract sculptor and painter and founding member of the De Stijl group. Life From 1905 to 1909 Vantongerloo studied Fine Art at the Fine Art Academies in ...

Jan Wils Jan Wils (22 February 1891 – 11 February 1972) was a Dutch architect. He was born in Alkmaar and died in Voorburg. Wils was one of the founding members of the De Stijl movement, which also included artists as Piet Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg ...

Manifest I of "The Style" (

De Stijl ''De Stijl'' (; ), Dutch for "The Style", also known as Neoplasticism, was a Dutch art movement founded in 1917 in Leiden. De Stijl consisted of artists and architects. In a more narrow sense, the term ''De Stijl'' is used to refer to a bod ...

), from ''De Stijl'', vol. II, no. 1 (November 1918), p. 4.

Realistic Manifesto 1920

The Realistic Manifesto (published August 5, 1920) was written by Russian sculptor

Naum Gabo Naum Gabo, born Naum Neemia Pevsner (23 August 1977) (Hebrew: נחום נחמיה פבזנר), was an influential sculptor, theorist, and key figure in Russia's post-Revolution avant-garde and the subsequent development of twentieth-century scul ...

and cosigned by his brother Antoine Pevsner, and the key text of Constructivism.

Purist Manifesto 1920-1925

The founders of Purism,

Amédée Ozenfant Amédée Ozenfant (15 April 1886 – 4 May 1966) was a French cubist painter and writer. Together with Charles-Edouard Jeanneret (later known as Le Corbusier) he founded the Purist movement. Education Ozenfant was born into a bourgeois ...

and Charles-Edouard Jeanneret (better known as

Le Corbusier Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , , ), was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture. He was ...

), titled their manifesto ''Après le Cubisme'' (After Cubism).

Surrealist Manifesto 1924

The first Surrealist manifesto was written by the French writer

André Breton André Robert Breton (; 19 February 1896 – 28 September 1966) was a French writer and poet, the co-founder, leader, and principal theorist of surrealism. His writings include the first ''Surrealist Manifesto'' (''Manifeste du surréalisme'') o ...

in 1924 and released to the public 1925. The document defines

Surrealism Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to ...

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 Reason is the capacity of Consciousness, consciously applying logic by Logical consequence, drawing conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activ ...

, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern.

Art Concret 1930

''Base de la peinture concrète'', was written by Otto G. Carlsund,

Jean Hélion Jean Hélion (April 21, 1904October 27, 1987) was a French painter whose abstract work of the 1930s established him as a leading modernist. His midcareer rejection of abstraction was followed by nearly five decades as a figurative painter. He was ...

Marcel Wantz Marcel may refer to: People * Marcel (given name), people with the given name Marcel * Marcel (footballer, born August 1981), Marcel Silva Andrade, Brazilian midfielder * Marcel (footballer, born November 1981), Marcel Augusto Ortolan, Brazilian ...

and

Léon Arthur Tutundjian Léon Arthur Tutundjian ( hy, Լեւոն Թիւթիւնճեան; 1905, Amasya, Ottoman Empire – December 1968, Paris, France) was an Armenian painter who reached fame in France. Life Leon (Levon) Tutundjian was born in Amasya, in Sivas Vilaye ...

, published in Revue Art Concret, no. 1 (April 1930).

Manifesto of Mural Painting 1933

Manifesto of Mural Painting was written by Mario Sironi in 1933.

Manifesto: Towards a Free Revolutionary Art 1938

Towards a Free Revolutionary Art was written by surrealist

and Marxist

Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian M ...

as a reaction against the Soviet Union's mandated art.

Post-war 1946–59

White Manifesto 1946

White Manifesto is a 1946 text written by

Lucio Fontana Lucio Fontana (; 19 February 1899 – 7 September 1968) was an Argentine-Italian painter, sculptor and theorist. He is mostly known as the founder of Spatialism. Early life Born in Rosario, to Italian immigrant parents, he was ...

COBRA manifesto 1948

CoBrA manifesto, titled ''La cause était entendue'', written by Christian Dotremont, and signed by

Karel Appel Christiaan Karel Appel (; 25 April 1921 – 3 May 2006) was a Dutch painter, sculptor, and poet. He started painting at the age of fourteen and studied at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam in the 1940s. He was one of the founders of the avant-gar ...

, Constant, Corneille, Asger Jorn, and Joseph Noiret in 1948.

Refus global 1948

The '' Refus global'' (or ''Total Refusal'') was an

anti-establishment An anti-establishment view or belief is one which stands in opposition to the conventional social, political, and economic principles of a society. The term was first used in the modern sense in 1958, by the British magazine '' New Statesman' ...

and anti-religious manifesto released on August 9, 1948, in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple- ...

by a group of sixteen young Québécois artists and intellectuals known as les Automatistes, led by Paul-Émile Borduas. The ''Refus global'' was greatly influenced by French poet

, and it extolled the creative force of the

subconscious In psychology, the subconscious is the part of the mind that is not currently of focal awareness. Scholarly use of the term The word ''subconscious'' represents an anglicized version of the French ''subconscient'' as coined in 1889 by the psycho ...

Manifesto of Eaismo 1948

Manifesto of Eaismo is by

Voltolino Fontani Voltolino Fontani (1920 in Livorno, Italia – 1976) was an Italian painter. Header He was an artist who contributed to introduce the expression Atomic age in the European culture. He was the founder of Eaismo, an artistic movement linking arts ...

Sculptors' First Manifesto 1949

Sculptors' First Manifesto is by

René Iché René Iché (21 January 1897 – 23 December 1954) was a 20th-century French sculptor. Life and work René Iché was born in Sallèles-d'Aude, France. He fought in World War I, where he was injured and gassed. After the war, he earned a degre ...

Mystical Manifesto 1951

Mystical Manifesto was written by

Salvador Dalí Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (; ; ; 11 May 190423 January 1989) was a Spanish surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, and the striking and bizarre images in ...

in 1951. The ''Mystical Manifesto'' inaugurated Dalí's Nuclear mysticism period.

Manifesto pittura nucleare 1951

Written was by

Enrico Baj Enrico Baj (October 31, 1924 – June 15, 2003)June 15 according to the Guardian, June 17 according to the-artists.org was an Italian artist and writer on art. Many of his works show an obsession with nuclear war. He created prints, sculptures ...

Les Spatialistes Manifesto 1952

Les Spatialistes, an Italian group based in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard language, Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the List of cities in Italy, second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 ...

drew up a manifesto for television.

Un Art Autre 1952

This work by

Michel Tapié Michel Tapié (full name: Michel Tapié de Céleyran; 26 February 1909 – 30 July 1987) was a French art critic, curator, and collector. He was an early and influential theorist and practitioner of " tachisme", a French style of abstract paint ...

defined the art informel movement.

Gutai Manifesto 1956

This manifesto by

Jirô Yoshihara was a Japanese painter, art educator, curator, and businessman. Mainly known for his gestural abstract impasto paintings from the 1950s and Zen-painting inspired hard-edge ''Circles'' beginning in the 1960s, Yoshihara’s oeuvre also encompasse ...

defined the artistic aims of Japan's

Gutai group The was a Japanese avant-garde artist group founded in the Hanshin region by young artists under the leadership of the painter Jirō Yoshihara in Ashiya, Japan, in 1954. The group, today one of the most internationally-recognized instances of ...

Auto-Destructive Art Manifesto 1959

Written by

Gustav Metzger Gustav Metzger (10 April 1926, Nuremberg – 1 March 2017, London) was a German artist and political activist who developed the concept of Auto-Destructive Art and the Art Strike. Together with John Sharkey, he initiated the Destruction in Ar ...

in 1964, this was given as a lecture to the

Architectural Association The Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, commonly referred to as the AA, is the oldest independent school of architecture in the UK and one of the most prestigious and competitive in the world. Its wide-ranging programme ...

, and taken over by students as an artistic "Happening". One of Metzger's Ealing College students was

Pete Townshend Peter Dennis Blandford Townshend (; born 19 May 1945) is an English musician. He is co-founder, leader, guitarist, second lead vocalist and principal songwriter of the Who, one of the most influential rock bands of the 1960s and 1970s. Towns ...

, who later cited Metzger's concepts as an influence for his famous guitar-smashing during performances of

The Who The Who are an English rock band formed in London in 1964. Their classic lineup consisted of lead singer Roger Daltrey, guitarist and singer Pete Townshend, bass guitarist and singer John Entwistle, and drummer Keith Moon. They are conside ...

Neo-Concrete Manifesto 1959

Neo-Concrete Manifesto, by

Ferreira Gullar José Ribamar Ferreira (September 10, 1930 – December 4, 2016), known by his pen name Ferreira Gullar, was a Brazilian poet, playwright, essayist, art critic, and television writer. In 1959, he was instrumental in the formation of the Neo-Concre ...

, begins: :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 Giuseppe Pinot-Gallizio (1902–1964) was an Italian painter, the formulator of industrial painting, and a founding member of the Situationist International. He was also a scholar of popular culture, archaeology, nomadism, and botany.Mirella Ban ...

, 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 A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Ho ...

" revolution to overthrow the existing order and the particular rise of

feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

and Black Power, as well as the pioneering of new art forms such as body art and

performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

Situationist Manifesto 1960

The

Situationist International The Situationist International (SI) was an international organization of social revolutionaries made up of avant-garde artists, intellectuals, and political theorists. It was prominent in Europe from its formation in 1957 to its dissolutio ...

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."

The Chelsea Hotel Manifesto 1961

This manifesto, written by

Yves Klein Yves Klein (; 28 April 1928 – 6 June 1962) was a French artist and an important figure in post-war European art. He was a leading member of the French artistic movement of Nouveau réalisme founded in 1960 by art critic Pierre Restany. Klein ...

, has been copyrighted since 1989 by the

Gagosian Gallery Gagosian is a contemporary art gallery owned and directed by Larry Gagosian. The gallery exhibits some of the most influential artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. There are 16 gallery spaces: five in New York City; three in London; two in Pa ...

. 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. :So... He appropriates the sky: :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 Claes Oldenburg (January 28, 1929 – July 18, 2022) was a Swedish-born American sculptor, best known for his public art installations typically featuring large replicas of everyday objects. Another theme in his work is soft sculpture versions ...

, a Pop artist, reacting against

Abstract Expressionism Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...

, 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 George Maciunas (; lt, Jurgis Mačiūnas; November 8, 1931 – May 9, 1978) was a Lithuanian American artist, born in Kaunas. A founding member and the central coordinator of Fluxus, an international community of artists, architects, composers ...

, 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 Manifesto 1967

SCUM, by

Valerie Solanas Valerie Jean Solanas (April 9, 1936 – April 25, 1988) was an American radical feminism, radical feminist known for the ''SCUM Manifesto'', which she self-published in 1967, and for her attempt to murder artist Andy Warhol in 1968. Solanas had ...

, 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 Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...

'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 Staten Island ( ) is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located in the city's southwest portion, the borough is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull an ...

. 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 Alice O'Connor (born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum;, . Most sources transliterate her given name as either ''Alisa'' or ''Alissa''. , 1905 – March 6, 1982), better known by her pen name Ayn Rand (), was a Russian-born American writer and p ...

, 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 Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...

, 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 The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

"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 Valie Export (often stylized as 'VALIE EXPORT'; born 17 May 1940) is an avant-garde Austrian artist. She is best known for provocative public performances and expanded cinema work. Her artistic work also includes video installations, compute ...

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 Sociological Art is an artistic movement and approach to aesthetics that emerged in France in the early 1970s and became the basis for the Sociological Art Collective formed by :fr:Hervé Fischer, Hervé Fischer, Fred Forest, and Jean-Paul Thenot in ...

Collective was founded by Fred Forest,

Jean-Paul Thénot Jean Paul or ''variation'' may refer to: Places * Rue ''Jean-Paul-II'', several streets, see List of places named after Pope John Paul II * Place ''Jean Paul II'', several squares, see List of places named after Pope John Paul II People Given nam ...

and

Hervé Fischer Hervé Fischer (born 1941) is a French artist-philosopher and sociologist. He graduated from the École Normale Supérieure (Rue d'Ulm, Paris, 1964) and defended his Master's thesis on Spinoza's political philosophy with Raymond Aron and devoted h ...

and had their manifesto published in the newspaper

Le Monde ''Le Monde'' (; ) is a French daily afternoon newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average circulation of 323,039 copies per issue in 2009, about 40,000 of which were sold abroad. It has had its own website si ...

. 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 Communication Aesthetics is a theory devised by Mario Costa (philosopher), Mario Costa and Fred Forest at Mercato San Severino in Italy in 1983. It is a theory of aesthetics calling for artistic practice engaging with and working through the develo ...

movement of 1983.

Body Art Manifesto 1975

In 1975

François Pluchart François Pluchart (5 August 1937 – 27 November 1988) was a French art critic and journalist. He was one of the theorists of Body art in France, with artists like Michel Journiac and Gina Pane. Pluchart founded the art journal ''ArTitudes ''A ...

promoted the first Body Art show at the Galerie Stadler in Paris, with work from 21 artists, including

Chris Burden Christopher Lee Burden (April 11, 1946 – May 10, 2015) was an American artist working in Performance Art, performance, sculpture and installation art. Burden became known in the 1970s for his performance art works, including ''Shoot (Burden), Sh ...

and Katharina Sieverding. The first Body Art manifesto was published.

A Manifesto on Lyrical Conceptualism 1975

Paul Hartal Paul Hartal (born 1936) is a Canadian painter and poet, born in Szeged, Hungary. He has created the term "Lyrical Conceptualism" to characterize his style in both painting and poetry, attempting to unite the scientific with the creative, or in ...

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 Charles Thomson (November 29, 1729 – August 16, 1824) was an Irish-born Patriot leader in Philadelphia during the American Revolution and the secretary of the Continental Congress (1774–1789) throughout its existence. As secretary, 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 Stuckism () is an international art movement founded in 1999 by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting as opposed to conceptual art.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".

Smile Manifestos 1982

by Stewart Home 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.

Cheap Art Manifesto 1984

by the

Bread and Puppet Theater The Bread and Puppet Theater (often known simply as Bread & Puppet) is a politically radical puppet theater, active since the 1960s, based in Glover, Vermont . The theater was co-founded by Elka and Peter Schumann. Peter is the artistic directo ...

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!

A Cyborg Manifesto 1985

by Donna J. Haraway 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".

What our art means 1986

Gilbert and George Gilbert Prousch, sometimes referred to as Gilbert Proesch (born 17 September 1943 in San Martin de Tor, Italy), and George Passmore (born 8 January 1942 in Plymouth, United Kingdom), are two artists who work together as the collaborative art du ...

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."

Post Porn Modernist Manifesto c.1989

by Veronica Vera 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

by VNS Matrix 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 In 1996 they wrote the Bitch Mutant Manifesto.

The ____________ Manifesto, 1996

by Michael Betancourt 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 1996 (Western/European)

Alfred Freddy Krupa Alfred Freddy Krupa (14 June 1971, Karlovac, Yugoslavia) is a Croatian contemporary painter, master draughtsman, book artist, art photographer, and art teacher. He published New Ink Art Manifesto in 1996. His name was introduced to the general ...

Modern European ink painting Modern European ink painting (sometimes called the "New Ink Movement" or the "New Ink Art") is an emerging style that reaches beyond traditional Asian ink painting in scope and treatment of a minimalist-art. Contemporary ink painting is developing ...

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 Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

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 Freddy Krupa have been granted a scholarship for postgraduate research in Japan in 1998.

Croatia , image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg , anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland") , image_map = , map_caption = , capit ...

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 Freddy 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 ''documenta'' is an exhibition of contemporary art which takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany. The ''documenta'' was founded by artist, teacher and curator Arnold Bode in 1955 as part of the Bundesgartenschau (Federal Horticultura ...

(exhibition) archiv, records and papers collection in

Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel and the district of the same name and had 201,048 inhabitants in December 2 ...

(the access number docA-97).

Group Hangman 1997

by Billy Childish Group Hangman was started by Billy Childish,

Tracey Emin Tracey Karima Emin, CBE, RA (; born 3 July 1963) is a British artist known for her autobiographical and confessional artwork. Emin produces work in a variety of media including drawing, painting, sculpture, film, photography, neon text and ...

and two others in

Medway Medway is a unitary authority district and conurbation in Kent, South East England. It had a population of 278,016 in 2019. The unitary authority was formed in 1998 when Rochester-upon-Medway amalgamated with the Borough of Gillingham to for ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

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."

E-Mail-Art & Internet-Art Manifesto 1997

Guy Bleus Guy Bleus (born October 23, 1950) is a Belgian artist, archivist and writer. He is associated with olfactory art, visual poetry, performance art and the mail art movement. His work covers different areas, including administration (which he ...

With the participation of 34 artistic networkers (such as, Anna Banana, Sarah Jackson, Madelyn 'Honoria' Starbuck, Judith Hoffberg, Vittore Baroni, Ken Friedman, John Held Jr., Ruud Janssen,

György Galántai György Galántai (born June 17, 1941) is a Hungarian neo-avant-garde and fluxus artist, organizer of the events of the Chapel Studio in Balatonboglár which run from 1970 to 1973 and founder of the Artpool Art Research Center Budapest. During ...

, Rod Summers,

Andrej Tisma Andrej Tisma was born in 1952 in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1976. He has had solo exhibitions since 1972 (Novi Sad, Belgrade, New York, Milan, Seoul, Munich, Naples, San Francisco, ...

) from 13 countries

(aka 42.292) wrote the ''RE: E-Mail-Art & Internet-Art Manifesto''. It was published in 1997 in Bleus' electronic art zine "E-Pêle-Mêle".

Extropic Art Manifesto 1997

by Natasha Vita-More (formerly Nancie Clark) (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 Timothy Francis Leary (October 22, 1920 – May 31, 1996) was an American psychologist and author known for his strong advocacy of psychedelic drugs. Evaluations of Leary are polarized, ranging from bold oracle to publicity hound. He was "a her ...

, Bill Viola and

Francis Ford Coppola Francis Ford Coppola (; ; born April 7, 1939) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is considered one of the major figures of the New Hollywood filmmaking movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Coppola is the recipient of five ...

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.

Stuckist manifesto 1999

by Billy Childish and

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 Authenticity or authentic may refer to: * Authentication, the act of confirming the truth of an attribute Arts and entertainment * Authenticity in art, ways in which a work of art or an artistic performance may be considered authentic Music * ...

", "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 Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called inst ...

, Britart,

Charles Saatchi Charles Saatchi (; ar, تشارلز ساعتجي; born 9 June 1943) is an Iraqi-British businessman and the co-founder, with his brother Maurice, of advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi. The brothers led the business – the world's largest ...

, 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 The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award). ...

Manifesto, handed out in their demonstrations at

Tate Britain Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in E ...

and a Critique of Damien Hirst. The

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

gallery holds three of the manifestos. Spin-offs by other Stuckists include a

Camberwell College of Arts Camberwell College of Arts is a public tertiary art school in Camberwell, in London, England. It is one of the six constituent colleges of the University of the Arts London. It offers further and higher education programmes, including postgra ...

Students for Stuckism manifesto (2000) and a teenagers' Underage Stuckists Manifesto (2006). In 2006,

Allen Herndon The Stuckism art movement was started in London in 1999 to promote Figurative art, figurative painting and oppose conceptual art.Mark Miremont. ''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

Lee Scrivner Lee Scrivner (born February 10, 1971) is an American writer and cultural theorist known for his book ''Becoming Insomniac'' (2014) and for his satirical avant-garde art manifestos. He writes on the literature, history, and culture of the Vict ...

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 The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. Located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch, the ICA ...

in London in April 2006. It was later published online by ICA residents, the London Consortium.

The Remodernist Film Manifesto 2008

Jesse Richards Jesse Richards (born July 17, 1975) is a painter, filmmaker and photographer from New Haven, Connecticut and was affiliated with the international movement Stuckism. He has been described as "one of the most provocative names in American underg ...

A manifesto on filmmaking written by former

Stuckist Stuckism () is an international art movement founded in 1999 by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting as opposed to conceptual art.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 Remodernist film developed in the United States and the United Kingdom in the early 21st century with ideas related to those of the international art movement Stuckism and its manifesto, Remodernism. Key figures are Jesse Richards and Peter Rinal ...

: "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 Stanley Kubrick (; July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and photographer. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, his films, almost all of which are adaptations of nove ...

's work, as being "dishonest and boring", as well as

Dogme 95 Dogme 95 is a 1995 avant-garde filmmaking movement founded by the Danish directors Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg, who created the "Dogme 95 Manifesto" and the "Vows of Chastity" ( da, kyskhedsløfter). These were rules to create films ...

'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.

The Superstroke Art Movement Manifesto 2008

by Conrad Bo This manifesto was written by the South African conceptual artist Conrad Bo, who believes the

Superstroke Superstroke is a term used for a contemporary art movement with its origins in South Africa. Superstroke is one of the influential art movements regarding African modernism and abstraction. The word "Superstroke" implies the super expressive brush ...

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

Art Movement want to achieve.

is short for the super expressive brush stroke. The Manifesto for the

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 (2011)

by Luke Turner '' The Metamodernist Manifesto'' was written by artist Luke Turner as "an exercise in simultaneously defining and embodying the

metamodern Metamodernism is a term that refers to a range of developments observed in many areas of art, culture and philosophy, emerging in the aftermath of postmodernism, roughly at the turn of the 21st century. To many, it is characterized as mediations be ...

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 Shia Saide LaBeouf (; born June 11, 1986) is an American actor, performance artist, and filmmaker. He played Louis Stevens in the Disney Channel series '' Even Stevens'', a role for which he received Young Artist Award nominations in 2001 a ...

reached out to Turner in early 2014 after reading the text.

The Excessivism Manifesto (2014)

by Kaloust Guedel The Manifesto was written in 2014 and was published in

Los Angeles Downtown News The ''Los Angeles Downtown News'' is a free weekly newspaper in Los Angeles, California, serving the Downtown Los Angeles area. The newspaper focuses on general news with an emphasis on real estate and business along with coverage of the arts s ...

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.

The New Manifesto of Arts (2020)

Menotti Lerro Menotti Augusto Serse Lerro (22 February 1980) is an Italian poet, writer, playwright, librettist and academic, born in Omignano, Salerno. His work explores matters of social alienation and existentialism, the physicality and vulnerability of the ...

and Antonello Pelliccia Cover of The New Manifesto of Arts by Lerro and Pelliccia

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 Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is, the capacity to place oneself in another's position. Definitions of empathy encompass a broad range of social, cog ...

at the middle of a vision of the self, in opposition with previous views of artists as confined from society.

References

External links

Poetry of the Revolution: Marx, Manifestos, and the Avant-GardesIndex of manifestos
with full text of the Gutai Manifesto, in English
Art Manifesto Reset
Global collaboration of works founded by John Manifesto Robinson and Gary Reset Barlow (2012). {{DEFAULTSORT:Art Manifesto Modernism Concepts in aesthetics