MANIFESTO
Art Center College of Design, Department of Environmental Design, Summer 2003

This manifesto was written for the students in my seminar on the manifesto. We met every week, not in the classroom at school, but in the geodesic dome of my house. We sat in a circle on the floor, drank a lot of coffee, and discussed both the great manifestos of the 20th century, and those that the students were writing. We had conversations about big ideas. I wanted them to start at the top, and articulate exactly what they wanted to accomplish with their work.

MANIFESTO FOR A SEMINAR ON THE MANIFESTO

In this class we will...
- read the writings and manifestos of 20th century artists and designers, in chronological order.
- participate in weekly discussions of the readings that are lively, thoughtful, probing and rigorous.
- take turns presenting images of the work of that week's artists and designers.
- keep a journal to respond to the readings, and to develop thoughts for our own manifesto.
- gradually develop our own set of principles and intentions as artists and designers.
- orally present our own manifesto on the final day of class.

SOME ON-GOING QUESTIONS FOR THE MANIFESTO:

Reactions vs. Past:
- What is responded to or reacted against?
- How are historical references framed and presented to support this?
- How is one idea rejected in order to support another?
- In the process of supporting one direction, must all others be rejected?
- How are conventional views of history rejected, refocused and redirected?
- How does the author insert themselves into the timeline of art or design?

Intentions vs. Present:
- What is the essence of the message?
- What is at stake?
- Why is this message important, or worth defending?
- Is it worth living for? or dying for?
- What contemporary forces are at work?
- Is there some powerful contemporary force, now neglected, that is being embraced?

Manifestations vs. Future:
- How are the stated intentions manifested in the work?
- Do the words support the work?
- How do intentions pave a vision for the future?
- Is there a striving for some "new" or the yet unseen vision?
- How is groundwork laid for the realization of this vision?
- How will new work be energized by this message?
- How do we see the work differently once the intentions have been articulated?
- What growth is being nurtured?
- Where do we go from here?

Public vs. Personal:
- Why are these intentions being made public?
- Who is the intended audience?
- When is it a self-specific, personal articulation of beliefs and ethos?
- When is it a public battle-cry, a rally to arms?
- Is fear a motivator?
- Does emotion play a roll?
- Is it a defense of self-interest?
- Does it have a political agenda?
- Is there a religious tone?
- Whose interests are at stake?

SOME GOALS FOR THE MANIFESTO:

Manifesto for Manifesto:
Through reading and discussing the manifestos of artists and designers we strive to...
- understand their life mission.
- grasp the essential challenge set down by their work.
- understand the sequence of thought and theory in 20th century art and design.
- understand the influence of place, time, and context on creative work.
- see how great artists and designers have staked their claim.
- contend with the space between their written words and their visual work.
- find a role model that we identify with.
- find the heart in their work.
- find some reference in the past to guide us forward.
- use them as a model for our own thought process.
- inspire us.

Through writing and declaring our own principles and intentions we strive to...
- take responsibility for our thoughts and works.
- find out what we believe in.
- publicly announce our ready presence as artists and designers.
- mine our past, present, and future in search of a message and meaning.
- empower ourselves as confident artists and designers.
- forever banish the thoughtless and meaningless from our work.
- insert ourselves into the great timeline of art and design.
- support our thoughts and defend our works.
- infuse our physical work with a rigor in process and meaning.
- give us a path for the future.
- take a stand against that which we despise.
- embrace that which we admire.
- give us something to think about when we go to sleep.
- give us something to get out of bed for.

SOME RESOURCES:

Readings:
1918 / theo van doesburg / de stijl: manifesto i / essay (pp39-40 conrads)
1919 / walter gropius / founding manifesto for the bauhaus / essay (pp49 conrads)
1924 / kasimir malevich / suprematist manifesto unovis / essay (pp87-88 conrads)
1931 / le corbusier / towards a new architecture / book (1986 dover)
1946 / lucio fontana / manifesto blanco / essay (pp48-51 stiles & selz)
1950 / ludwig mies van der rohe / technology and architecture / essay (pp154 conrads)
1951 / jean dubuffet / anticultural traditions / essay (pp192-197 stiles & selz)
1953 / ad reinhardt / twelve rules for a new academy / essay (pp86-90 stiles & selz)
1957 / marcel duchamp / the creative act / essay (pp818-819 stiles & selz)
1960 / louis i. kahn / order is / essay (pp 169-170 conrads)
1961 / claus oldenberg / i am for an art / essay (pp 335-337 stiles & selz)
1965 / peter cook / archigram / book
1966 / aldo rossi / the architecture of the city / book (1982 mit press)
1966 / robert venturi / complexity and contradiction / book (1988 moma)
1966 / yoko ono / to the wesleyan people / essay (pp736-739 stiles & selz)
1968 / bridget riley / untitled statement / essay (pp112 stiles & selz)
1969 / eva hesse / untitled statements / essay (pp593-597 stiles & selz)
1969 / sol lewitt / sentences on conceptual art / essay (pp826-827 stiles & selz)
1971 / lucas samaras / another autointerview / essay (pp349-355 stiles & selz)
1972 / agnes martin / writings: the untroubled mind / book (1997)
1975 / andy warhol / the philosophy of andy warhol / book (harvest)
1976 / peter eisenman / post-functionalism / essay (pp78-84 nesbitt)
1977 / robert venturi & denise scott brown / leaving las vegas / essay (pp310-321 nesbitt)
1978 / rem koolhaas / delirious new york / book (1994 monacelli press)
1981 / joseph beuys / an appeal for an alternative / essay (pp634-644 stiles & selz)
1882 / john baldessari / what thinks me now / essay (pp890-891 stiles & selz)
1983 / alice neel / art is a form of history / essay (pp213-216 stiles & selz)
1987 / james wines / de-architecture / book (rizzoli)
1991 / tadao ando / toward new horizons in architecture / essay (pp456-462 nesbitt)
1992 / william mcdonough / the hannover principles & others / essay (pp400-410 nesbitt)
1997 / deborah berke / architecture of the everyday / book (princeton press pp222-226)
1999 / bruce mau / an incomplete manifesto for growth / essay (from id magazine 3/99)

Anthologies:
1964 / ulrich conrads, editor / programs and manifestos on 20th century architecture
1996 / kate nesbitt, editor / theorizing a new agenda for architecture
1996 / kristine stiles & peter selz / theories and documents of contemporary art

Quotes:
"the artists of today, all over the world, impelled by one and the same consciousness, have taken part on the spiritual plane in the world war against the domination of individualism, of arbitrariness."
1918 / theo van doesburg / de stijl: manifesto i

"together let us desire, conceive and create the new structure of the future, which will embrace architecture and sculpture and painting in one unity and which will one day rise toward heaven from the hands of millions of workers like the crystal symbol of a new faith."
1919 / walter gropius / founding manifesto for the bauhaus

"our path will be difficult, very difficult! life must be purified of the clutter of the past, of parasitical eclecticism, so that it can be brought to its normal evolution."
1924 / kasimir malevich / suprematist manifesto unovis

"a great epoch has begun. there exists a new spirit"
1931 / le corbusier / towards a new architecture

"man will take on a new psychic structure. we are living in a mechanical age."
1946 / lucio fontana / manifesto blanco

"architecture is the real battleground of the spirit. architecture wrote the history of the epochs and gave them their names. architecture depends on time."
1950 / mies van der rohe / technology and architecture

"i believe beauty is nowhere. i consider this notion of beauty as absolutely false. i refuse absolutely to assent to this idea that there are ugly persons and ugly objects."
1951 / jean dubuffet / anticultural traditions

"the fine artist should have a fine mind, free of all passion, ill-will and delusion. the fine artist need not sit cross-legged."
1952 / ad reinhardt / twelve rules for a new academy

"in the creative act, the artist goes from intention to realization through a chain of totally subjective reactions. his struggle toward the realization is a series of efforts, pains, satisfactions, refusals, decisions, which also cannot and should not be fully self-conscious…"
1957 / marcel duchamp / the creative act

"in the nature of space is the spirit and the will to exist a certain way."
1960 / louis i. kahn / order is

"we are in pursuit of an idea, a new vernacular, something to stand alongside the space capsules, computers and throw-away packages of an atomic / electronic age."
1965 / peter cook / archigram

"the contrast between the particular and the universal, between individual and collective, emerges from the city and from its construction, its architecture."
1966 / aldo rossi / the architecture of the city

"i speak of a complex and contradictory architecture based on the richness and ambiguity of modern experience, including that experience which is inherent in art."
1966 / robert venturi / complexity and contradiction

"the natural state of life and mind is complexity. at this point, what art can offer is an absence of complexity, a vacuum….."
1966 / yoko ono / to the wesleyan people

"i am sometimes asked ‘what is your objective?’ and this i cannot truthfully answer. i work ‘from‘ something rather than ‘towards’ something."
1968 / bridget riley / untitled statements

"i would like the work to be non-work. this means that it would find its way beyond my preconceptions."
1969 / eva hesse / untitled statements

"13. a work of art may be understood as a conductor from the artist’s mind to the viewer’s."
1969 / sol lewitt / sentences on conceptual art

"what is art? the physical look of humanity. of what value is art? it allows me to be a revolutionary in a constitutional democracy."
1971 / lucas samaras / another autointerview

"inspiration is there all the time for everyone whose mind is not clouded over with thoughts, whether they realize it or not. most people have no realization whatever of the moments in which they are inspired. inspiration is pervasive but not a power. it’s a peaceful thing. it is a consolation to even plants and animals. do you think that it is unique? if it were unique no one would be able to respond to your work."
1972 / agnes martin / the untroubled mind

"being born is like being kidnapped. and then sold into slavery."
1975 / andy warhol / the philosophy of andy warhol

"…the modernist sensibility has to do with the changed mental attitude toward the artifacts of the physical world. this change has not only been manifested aesthetically, but also socially, philosophically, and technologically – in sum it has been manifested in a new cultural attitude."
1976 / peter eisenman / post-functionalism

"pop art has shown the value of the old cliché used in a new context to achieve new meaning: to make the common uncommon."
1977 / robert venturi & denise scott brown / leaving las vegas

"the fatal weakness of manifestos is their inherent lack of evidence. manhattan’s problem is the opposite: it is a mountain range of evidence without a manifesto."
1978 / rem koolhaas / delirious new york

"we warn against a thoughtless turnabout. let us begin with self-reflection. let us first look for the grounds which call for our turning away from the prevailing state of things. let us seek the ideas which point us in a direction of change."
1981 / joseph beuys / an appeal for an alternative

"i want to eroticize time, consciousness, and human culture"
1982 / john baldessari / what thinks me now

"i do not know if the truth that i have told will benefit the world in any way. i managed to do it at great cost to myself, and perhaps to others."
1983 / alice neel / art is a form of history

"the responsibility of architecture – indeed any work of public art – is to communicate. however, a lack of communication has been architecture’s most conspicuous failure in the 20th century."
1987 / james wines / de-architecture

"human life is not intended to oppose nature and endeavor to control it, but rather to draw nature into an intimate association in order to find union with it."
1991 / tadao ando / toward new horizons in architecture

"1. insist on rights of humanity and nature to co-exist in a healthy, supportive, diverse, and sustainable condition."
1992 / william mcdonough / the hannover principles & others

"acknowledge the needs of the many rather than the few; address diversity of class, race, culture and gender; design without allegiance to a priori architectural styles or formulas, and with concern for program and construction."
1997 / deborah berke / architecture of the everyday

"forget about good. good is a known quantity. good is what we all agree on. growth is not necessarily good."
1999 / bruce mau an incomplete / manifesto for growth