The next 3 manifestos imagine and project future states of feminism. They describe and advocate new horizons for feminist thinking.
Violetta Liagatchev
Constitution Intempestive de la RÉPUBLIQUE INTERNATIONALE DES ARTISTES FEMMES (1995)
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Arahmaiani
Manifesto of the Sceptics (2009)
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Martine Syms
The Mundane Afro-futurist Manifesto (2013)
This manifesto is available in the ebook.
It is also online on n.paradoxa online, issue 3 (1999): https://www.ktpress.co.uk/pdf/nparadoxaissue3.pdf
You can find out more about the artist, who is Russian and lives in France on her website: http://violetta.liagatchev.free.fr/
This website still has many parts under construction.
Violetta Liagatchev utilise des techniques diverses (vidéo, photographie, dessin). Sans tomber dans le politically correct ou la revendication militante, elle interroge les principes du féminisme et renouvelle les stéréotypes d’une manière extrêmement originale. L’art est selon elle une activité assexuée, et pour cette raison, il nécessite une vision du monde qui ne culpabilise pas le corps. La hiérarchie des pouvoirs est remise en cause, dans cette volonté de se débarrasser du pathos, et de distiller de l’humour dans les chose graves. Violetta Liagatchev brise la bipolarité conflictuelle homme/femme. Quête d’identité? De singularité? Pas seulement. Détournement des codes unilatéraux. Avec humour et une certaine virulence.
(Rough translation) Violetta Liagachev uses various techniques (video, photography, drawing). Without falling into political correctness or militant claim, she questions the principles of feminism and renews stereotypes in an extremely original way. According to her, art is an assexual activity, and for this reason it requires a vision of the world that does not make the body feel guilty. The hierarchy of powers is called into question, in this desire to get rid of pathos, and to distill humor into serious things. Violetta Liagachev breaks the male/female conflicting bipolarity. Identity quest? Singularity? Not only that. Misappropriation of unilateral codes. With humour and a certain virulence.
Véronique Pittolo: http://www.artmag.com/galeries/c_frs/mondart/cfrpma10.html
Quotes from Violetta Liagatchev’s manifesto were included in another artwork by Sylvie Blocher ‘How Much Can I Trust You?’ a video installation, 1995 / 5 h 20 min / 8 monitors (first shown at Art Basel).
The paradox and contradictions in women’s position are explored in this manifesto, especially how men see women and how women want to refigure and change that relationship to generate their own conceptions of the world.
A global scale, a worldview, a reckoning of differences in Article 1 contrast sharply with the “intimidation” experienced by many of “the frustration of mothers” in Article 2 or the “suffering by tradition” in Article 3 and the “objectification” of women in Article 4. In Article 6, she highlights how rivalry between women is a component of their submission to patriarchy.
Like Carolee Schneemann in her manifesto in the ebook, a new relationship to history is required. As well as knowledge of how the world is changing.
She affirms the need for a new evaluation of women of themselves, “knowing that you are free to do anything”, as much as the fact that that to “reactivate art life”, no excuses can be given to silencing art activities – even in exceptional circumstnaces of war, of violence, in the face of cultural sclerosis.
This manifesto is available in the ebook.
A preamble to this manifesto is provided in her letter to Marinetti, the author of the Futurist Manifesto, also found in the ebook.
The copy in the ebook begins with an extended preamble on the state of contemporary art.
The artist is represented by Tyler Rollins in New York since 2014 and the gallery has several webpages on her work.
‘To be a feminist means one must face formidable challenges from the conservatives and the fundamentalists. Conflict happens because the religious conservatives and fundamentalists don’t want to loose the legitimacy of their power! And the second challenge is the impact of globalization, where the woman and her body tend to be exploited. Her body may be bought and sold in the cheap labour market. The authorities and the global economic decisions makers often stand on the side of the conservatives and the fundamentalists in their attitude towards those groups who are weak.’
Arahmaini’s statement in the Feminist Art Database at Brooklyn Museum. Arahmaini was included in Global Feminisms (Brooklyn Museum, 2007).
Listen to Arahmaiani Feisal (Yogyakarta & Tibet) read the 12 articles of ‘Manifesto of the Sceptics’ at the 6th iteration of ACAW’s annual forum FIELD MEETING: Thinking Collections, premiered offsite in Dubai (Jan 25-26, 2019), which was also a premier of a new work.
Synopsis: Conceived for FIELD MEETING, the performance incorporated Arahmaiani studiously sitting behind a desk and reciting a series of proclamations out loud from her well-known text entitled: “Manifesto of the Sceptics” (originally written in the early 2000’s). Her reading was juxtaposed against the backdrop of riveting imagery from her new film depicting the artist in performance within the various holy sites and breathtaking landscapes of Tibet. Amongst the many attributions distinguishing artists in Society, Arahmaiani’s recitation claimed artists as “alchemical vessels for change” which she herself has best exemplified through a lengthy collaboration with Tibetan monks (and local Chinese authorities), resulting in the planting of nearly one million trees across the country.
A major retrospective of her work was recently organised: Arahmaiani: The Past has not Passed, 17 Nov 2018 — 10 Mar 2019 at the Museum Macan, Jakarta, Indonesia. In the following video interview she discusses ‘Manifesto of the Sceptics’ in relation to her own work and her understanding of philosophy. This interview is in Indonesian, there is no translation into any other language or sub-titles. (Any translation would be welcome!)
This 12 articles in this manifesto are a defence of artistic freedom and possibility, and the widest possible conception of art.
She does not use the term feminism in it. But this argument for freedom is a feminist argument, in the sense that freedom of expression is a human right, and all women’s rights are human rights.
It is also a defence of what art itself can do: orientated to the future, reviewing the past; changing and renegotiating values; challenging the thinking of the market, politics and religion; belonging to and speaking to everyone; a bridge between the material and the spiritual.
Art is a tool and an alchemical vessel: the combination of rational and moral intelligence and conscience. It is not an object with just market value but human and social values.
If you read the opening remarks she published in the ebook, and her letter to Marinetti you will see that she is also making a case for a different and complex case for thinking about the politics around identity and new technologies/new media which speaks to issues in today’s globalised economy. She foregrounds her understanding of how power structures and operates and control our understandings of technology, art, history, ownership and property in a discussion with colleagues interrupted by an earthquake!
This manifesto is available in the ebook and on Rhizome.org (17 Dec 2013) (where it was first published) and Martine Sym’s own website.
The Mundane Afro-futurist Manifesto (2013) from Third Rail, issue 3.
You can find out more about the many facets of Martine Sym’s practice on her website: Martine Syms.
Read this interview with the artist, in Art News, 2016, about her work publishing zines as well as this manifesto alongside continuing her art practice. Syms describes herself as “an economic entrepreneur”.
‘You Make Publics Around The Ideas’: Martine Syms on Publishing, Self-Help, Zine Culture, and More’
Her work, Mythic Being, is a good demonstration of her ambition to explore again representations of blackness as a Mundane Afrofuturist. The footnote in the ebook points to her work on a play designed to show the life of a black woman in LA in the year 2050.
(The title of this work is a direct historical reference to Adrian Piper’s series of performances: Mythic Being (1973-1975 .e.g Mythic Being: Doing Yoga, 1975) or in drag in 1973. These works aimed to demonstrate how black people’s lives and actions in certain circumstances or undertaking certain actions are subject to racist assumptions. Adrian Piper’s work explores the connections between everyday life and how racist attitudes emerge in the appearance and presence of black people.
This is how Martine Syms describes her rationale for the manifesto in one interview:-
“I was a black person using technology so in this one year I kept getting invited to all these Afrofuturist events,” she explains. “And I was not really feeling it. I thought some of the claims were just a little too self-serious. Around the time there was a noticeable increase in deaths from police brutality, and some of it just felt extremely strange. Senseless. I had already been thinking about that and responding to that.”
Drawing inspiration from writers Kodwo Eshun and Greg Tate, as well as Geoff Ryman’s mundane science-fiction manifesto, Syms starts by saying: “We the mundane Afrofuturists, being alternately pissed off and bored, need a means of asserting a different set of values to begin imagining the future.” Dreams of utopia, she says, “can encourage us to forget that outer space will not save us from injustice … post-black is a misnomer, post-colonialism is too”.
Syms interviewed in The Guardian 9 May 2016
Contrary to seeing this as an alliance with Afro-futurist debates in the UK and USA, the manifesto as “Mundane” is a puncturing and forceful reminder that racism is part of the present and needs material changes to be made today. It does not disappear in visions of future worlds, space travel or science-fiction which to Syms represent a form of escapism or fake idealism in their inter-species and multi-cultural visions. The reference to “alternately pissed off and bored” is from the opening lines of Valerie Solanas’ SCUM manifesto.
These ideas are made clearer in other interviews by Syms.
Sometimes it seems like we’re still talking about an essentialist idea of what is or is not black art. Right now a lot of artists my age are interested in claiming blackness and I think that’s related to the historical moment, much like it was in early 90s film and music, or the Black Arts Movement of the 70s. I get really bored with the idea that there is some specific way that black art looks. I am, however, very intrigued by the idea of making an image in a black way. Arthur Jafa refers to this as a Black Visual Intonation. He writes about it better than me. With regard to my own process, I think less about myself as a black artist than I do about making work for a black viewer. I think a lot of about the ideal viewer / reader / listener / user, and how assumptions about who they are and what they want influence aesthetic choices in pop culture. I usually out myself in reference or language or appearance, but I see an opportunity to be vague about blackness, to refuse an identity by shifting focus from author to audience.
Syms interview, ‘The Unreliable Narrator’ Mousse Magazine (2015).
MAURIZIO CATTELAN AND MARTA PAPINI — What do you think is missing in art?
MARTINE SYMS — Non-white, non-Western, economically and socially diverse work, narratives, histories, experiences, leadership, staff, artists, and so on. Also, fewer men talking all the time about nothing. Shut the fuck up.
MAURIZIO CATTELAN AND MARTA PAPINI — What’s the most fundamental aspect in a work of art, from your point of view?
MARTINE SYMS — There are three essentials: 1/ a clear voice; 2/ an encounter; 3/ stakes.Martine Syms interviewed in Purple #30 https://purple.fr/magazine/los-angeles-issue-30/martine-syms/
Here is a video of Martine Syms reading the Manifesto.
The imagery that accompanies the video, highlights many of the points she is making in the manifesto.
The structure of the manifesto emphasises first an analysis of where and how black people appear in space, science-fiction, futurist visions of inter-stellar travel, amongst astronauts and space travellers.
It is written in terms of “recognising” certain realities, rejoicing in particular options, promising certain changes, and ends with an appeal to “join me in the future of black imagination”.
This structure of recognising the contemporary situation, affirming possibilities for a liberation and a “wild imagination” and negating racist imagery/identities and identifications is important to its overall message.
The manifesto affirms “intertextuality, double entendre, politics, incongruity, polyphony, and collective first-person” narratives as the means for change in the recognition and making of black imaginative perspectives.
Valie EXPORT
Woman’s Art: A Manifesto (1972)
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Monica Sjoo and Anne Berg
Towards a Revolutionary Art (1971-2)
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Maria Klonaris / Katerina Thomadaki
Manifesto for a Radical Femininity: For an Other Cinema (1977)
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An On-going Womanifesto (1975)
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Julie Perini
Relational Film-making Manifesto
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Violetta Liagatchev
Constitution Intempestive de la RÉPUBLIQUE INTERNATIONALE DES ARTISTES FEMMES (1995)
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Arahmaiani
Manifesto of the Sceptics (2009)
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Martine Syms
The Mundane Afro-futurist Manifesto (2013) from Third Rail, issue 3
