Lesson 1

Lesson 1: Polarities
I declare what I am for/against, with style

Manifestos have an ephemeral quality, not all are printed in books or journals, often they are pamphlets, handouts, press releases or occasional artists’ statements published in art journals or exhibition catalogues. Many manifestos now circulate on the internet, some are documented by artists on their websites.

During this course, different ways of understanding, thinking about or reading manifestos will be explored.

We will be looking at how feminism in relation to art appears in the selected manifestos. Some of these manifestos contain ideas about making art, some about making political change, some are about the situation for women artists. Others are proposals and statements for future work or future changes in the situation of women, and encourage us to think about their creative potential or what will become possible in the future. Most begin with a critique or set of criticism of the status quo: what exists today.

In this course, we are exploring these manifestos for what they contain and attempting to understand why they were written, what were the arguments proposed and to recognise the differences in points of view and identify the different political positions in them. Whether you agree or not with the positions expressed, or the narrative I have provided to link them, we can discuss in the forums. The course aims to bring greater depth and understanding to how these feminist art manifestos point to larger debates in feminism(s), contemporary art practices and art world politics.

Throughout there are numerous links to follow including to the articles/books where quotations are from, videos to watch and links to artist’s websites or exhibition information. There is a reading list for you to pursue for further information about artists’ manifestos.

The lessons are divided to focus on different manifestos. Each part of the lesson takes 2-4 manifestos and sets up a strong comparison between them.
You should locate the manifesto in question as your first task. Most are in the ebook, some are online.

Please read the narrative of the lesson after you’ve looked at the manifesto in question. The narrative of the lesson provides you with a context in which the manifesto was produced as well as a means to search for more information about the artist.

‘To launch a manifesto you have to want: A.B. & C., and fulminate against 1, 2, & 3, work yourself up and sharpen your wings to conquer and circulate lower and upper case As, Bs & Cs, sign, shout, swear, organise prose into a form that is absolutely and irrefutably obvious, prove its ne plus ultra and maintain that novelty resembles life in the same way as the latest apparition of a harlot proves the essence of God. His existence had already been proved by the accordion, the landscape and soft words. *
To impose one’s A.B.C. is only natural – and therefore regrettable. Everyone does it in the form of a crystalbluff-madonna, or a monetary system, or pharmaceutical preparations, a naked leg being the invitation to an ardent and sterile Spring. The love of novelty is a pleasant sort of cross, it’s evidence of a naive don’t-give-a-damn attitude, a passing, positive, sign without rhyme or reason. But this need is out of date, too.

http://www.ubu.com/papers/tzara_dada-manifesto.html
Tristan Tzara Dada Manifesto (23 March 1918) first published in Dada 3
* in 1916 at the CABARET VOLTAIRE in Zurich.

This quote from Tristan Tzara’s ‘Dada manifesto’ neatly sums up the contradictory ways in which manifestos are seen in the history of modern art. It is quoted by Janet Lyons and Julian Hanna in their books on manifestos.
On the one hand, manifestos are documents which present a position, a statement, an artistic approach – simply expressed in a list of what the artists, who sign the manifesto, are “for” and what they are “against”.
On the other, the artist or group who writes them is seen to represent a tendency, a movement or a style underpinned by this statement as the expression of their artistic philosophy, their “truth”. This is why publishing a manifesto is often seen as the means through which a movement can be identified and its aims or artistic positions understood.  Art movements, however, are not political parties. They are not setting out their objectives in an election campaign and seeking votes or (Facebook) likes or Twitter loves/hearts. Elections are the primary place in politics where someone produces a manifesto to get other people to join them in a cause.

Tzara wrote 8 manifestos for Dada – but even, in this one, he declares his reluctance to write down his principles because as a Dadaist he is against principles. The irony of this comment is that this statement became “exemplary” of the anarchism within Dada itself. His rejection of religion is also clear in this quote and he uses the figures of women, both harlot and madonna as well as a man’s sexual partner, to make his case about God’s existence in the world having no “proof” while the world remains addicted to novelty as a “cross” (using a Christian religious metaphor) carried by all. These women – Madonna/whore – become a foil against which the hypocrisy of the world can be established in men’s thought.

Contrary to Julian Hanna’s assessment of Sara Ahmed’s ‘A Killjoy Manifesto’ and Valerie Solanas’ ‘SCUM Manifesto’, where ‘Feminist manifestos – or any challenge to any system of oppression, whether patriarchal, colonial or otherwise – are often seen as violent provocations, no matter how rhetorical the threat they pose’ (The Manifesto Handbook, p.71), most of the feminist art manifestos here use language to challenge the status quo and express their frustration and disappointment with it, primarily because they want to realise a different vision for art itself. Wit and humour play a large part in these protests.

This course is not aiming to show feminism as an art movement (like other modernist art movements), nor are these manifestos presented just to demonstrate feminism’s claim to be an avant-garde (as a characteristic of movements). The gap between feminist politics and art or cultural politics is discussed throughout, as well as how each author sees the connections.

Feminism is a political movement and as such makes a contribution to art in many different ways. These manifestos provide a way to focus on both the artistic and political aspirations within feminism and the visual arts. By considering the techniques, positions and stances within very different feminist art manifestos, produced in many countries over a 50 year time-frame, the diverse facets of feminism in the work of women artists, the work of the women’s art movement and feminist thinking about both art and politics can be explored.

Feminism has never been a singular movement, it was always a complex set of allegiances and alliances. The last fifty years (1970-2020) have witnessed an explosion of different forms of feminism (ecofeminisms; cyberfeminisms; queer feminisms and Afro-futurist feminisms) often presented in contrast to the early politics of women’s liberation movement of the 1970s, as if it were singular, when it too was a very broad alliance of different social and cultural political groupings. Feminism remains a dynamic politics, constantly renewing and reinventing itself in different campaigns and protests, and the singularity of this one term is insufficient to cover the broad range of political opinions within it, which in political terms are: liberal, left-wing, right-wing, radical, anarchist, separatist, cyber-feminist and eco-feminist. In varying degrees and kinds, feminism has spoken for greater recognition of women’s cultural production and for women’s collaboration and collective action in demanding change. The majority of these feminism(s) have been resolutely anti-sexist, anti-racist, anti-homophobia, anti-ageist, anti-capitalist and anti-Imperalist, even in pursuit of different initiatives for equal opportunities, for “mainstreaming”, for separatism as a withdrawal from society or a necessary stage in women’s self-development. Some of these differences within and across feminisms will be explored in the course.

The comparison between Yvonne Rainer’s ‘No Manifesto’ and Mette Ingvartsen’s ‘Yes Manifesto’ is the starting point in this lesson for considering different positions within feminism in terms of “affirmation” and “negation”.

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Who wrote these manifestos?

Yvonne Rainer is a choreographer, dancer, filmmaker, author in the USA.

Mette Ingvartsen is a choreographer and performance artist in Sweden.

Old Boys Network began in 1997 with artists Susanne Ackers, Cornelia Sollfrank, Ellen Nonnenmacher, Vali Djordjevic, Julianne Pierce.

Mierle Ladermann Ukeles is an artist in the USA.

Yvonne Rainer ‘No Manifesto’ (1965)

You can find her ‘No Manifesto’ on this webpage:

https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/yvonne-rainer-trio-a-1978/

This is a film of Yvonne Rainer performing Trio A (choreographed in 1966, filmed in 1978).

This performance is seen as the fulfillment of her “No Manifesto”.

However, the no manifesto was first published in Tulane Drama Review in 1965, in an article by Yvonne Rainer entitled ‘Some Retrospective Notes on a Dance for 10 People and 12 Mattresses Called “Parts of Some Sextets,” Performed at the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut, and Judson Memorial Church, New York, in March, 1965′

Trio A is a well-known dance sequence by Yvonne Rainer. Since its first presentation in 1966 as part of the larger performance The Mind is a Muscle, Part 1 at Judson Memorial Church in New York, it has been performed repeatedly in various forms and contexts by dancers and non-dancers alike. The piece comprises a sequence of unpredictable movements that unfold in a continuous motion, deliberately opposing familiar dance patterns of development and climax. According to Rainer, “The individual sequences last from 4 1/2 to 5 minutes, depending on each performer’s physical inclination. Two primary characteristics of the dance are its unmodulated continuity and its imperative involving the gaze. The eyes are always averted from direct confrontation with the audience via independent movement of the head or closure of the eyes or simple casting down of the gaze.

http://www.reactfeminism.org/entry.php?l=lb&id=133&e=

If you want more resources on Yvonne Rainer,

Look for the book Feelings are Facts: A Life (MIT, 2006) and the documentary film and website: http://www.feelingsarefacts.com/
A recent exhibition reassessing her work in the context of other women choreographers is:
Radical Bodies: Anna Halprin, Simone Forti and Yvonne Rainer, California and NY, 1955–72 at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, May 24 – September 16, 2017

You might like to consider these two comments that Yvonne Rainer has made about the “no” manifesto.

That infamous “NO manifesto” has dogged my heels ever since it was first published….It was never meant to be prescriptive for all time for all choreographers, but rather, to do what the time honored tradition of the manifesto always intended manifestos to do; clear the air at a particular cultural and historical moment (Feelings are Facts, 2006, p.264)

and

Postscript. 3    All I am inclined to indicate here are various feelings about “Parts of Some Sextets” and its effort in a certain direction-an area of concern as yet not fully clarified for me in relation to dance, but existing as a very large NO to many facts in the theatre today. (This is not to say that I personally do not enjoy many forms of theatre. It is only to define more stringently the rules and boundaries my own artistic game of the moment.)
Tulane Drama Review (TDR) 10.2 (Winter, 1965) pp.177-178

Mette Ingvartesen ‘Yes Manifesto’ (2004)

Her “Yes Manifesto” is in the ebook and available from her website:

http://www.metteingvartsen.net/performance/5050/

This is a video recording of Mette Ingvartsen performing ’50/50′ (2004)

This performance is linked to the production of her “Yes Manifesto”.

‘Her inspiration for this performance is extreme and spectacular forms of movement. Her focus is wholly on physical action rather than on possible psychological motivation. She adapts and transforms the extreme movements of rock concerts, opera and the circus with precision and enjoyment. It is both extreme and unheimlich.’

https://desingel.be/en/programme/dedonderdagen/mette-ingvartsen-b-5050

For more resources on Mette Ingvartsen:-

Search the artist’s website: https://www.metteingvartsen.net

or read the article by:

Here are some points about these two manifestos to consider.

Yvonne Rainer’s manifesto is written in the “negative”, as a list of ideas and concepts to which she wants to say “no”.
If you link together all these “no’s”, can we establish those ideas to which she is saying “yes” ? The “no’s” in the manifesto create this space for a positive “yes”, through their refusals and rejections of different dance conventions. How do her actual movements in Trio A affirm her ideas?
Why, for example, are continuous movement and the averted gaze important here?

Mette Ingvartsen’s manifesto is written as a series of ideas she wants to say “yes” to. What “positive” space does this create and how would you recognise what she wants to say “no” to in the movements or actions she performs?

Whether one “affirms” or “rejects” a series of ideas, i.e. writes positively for something or negatively against particular things in a manifesto, when reading it, it becomes important to consider the opposite of what is actually refused or embraced.

Both performances “refuse” to offer the performer, as a woman, as a sexual object or as a woman who “engages” a male viewer in a direct and sexualised manner (as in mainstream Hollywood cinema). They do this in a number of different and distinct ways.

1. Consider how each woman presents herself in the performance:
Yvonne Rainer wears rehearsal clothes, not a performance costume. This emphasises her actions, not her “appearance”.
Mette Ingvartsen appears naked, but wears a bright orange mask over her face for part of the performance. This acts like “hair”, a mask, and is slightly clown-like. Does covering her face work to emphasise the movements of her naked body as actions?

2. Consider the use of sound in Mette Ingvartsen’s video. Yvonne Rainer’s work is performed silently.

3. Yvonne Rainer’s work emphasises continuous movement and the flow of one movement into another. Mette Ingvartsen’s work uses exaggerated and repeated movements. It is also divided into 4 distinct “acts”, using different soundtracks.

4. In two of Mette Ingvartsen’s acts, she keeps her back to the audience. When she then faces the audience, does this make it more striking to look at the performer’s face and facial expressions?
Yvonne Rainer’s work moves across the space but generally she keeps her face to the audience. Her gaze is always deliberately averted or indirect. How does the audience perceive the performer as a result?

5. Does the contrast between these women go beyond two different “styles” of modern dance, two individual artists’ performances, and two manifestos written positively and negatively? How are they linked when they are written/performed, 40 years apart, in two different countries?

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