The Manifesto

Finding a home as an artist is a difficult endeavor. In almost all cases you are forced to live a split existence: between that which brings you sustenance and that which brings you fulfillment. This is no different from the non-artist perhaps––many people work to pay the bills and find their joy and contentment in some other venture––but for artists, an intense, often morbid dependency is placed upon the non-work venture that separates them from the evening hobbyist and might only be shared, in terms of mental commitment, with the concerned parent. It is not just a hobby. It is not just for fun. The entirety of one’s self and one’s satisfaction with the self is on the line each time one goes to the page, canvas, screen, or stage. Yet, this being the case, you will be hard-pressed to find many artists whose lives are constructed in such a manner that this dire commitment to their craft and expression provides them, also, a means of not starving. Many days the artist will only get to return to his or her craft for a single, gleaming hour, or for a dark, isolated evening, already exhausted from the day’s work. Yet one continues on in such a fashion, hiding away from social interaction, refusing commitments that may provide more money or stability or happiness, all in service to this thing that is incredibly difficult to describe and even more difficult to get many people to care about or even look at.

Further isolating, if one has stumbled upon the decision that he and she would like to live an art life––whatever that may mean––one has likely come to the conclusion that everything in life and experience is subject to examination, and, more often than not, contradiction. Truth is fallible and unstable. Realness occurs to one as a feeling rather than within the data of recorded experience. Behind every rule and law and prescription, if one cares to look long enough and intensely enough, there is likely nothing but contradiction. Everything is subject to change. Everything described as true and concrete, at its core, is absurd.

These two facts of the artist––that of his life structure and commitments and that of his world-view––are enough to spiral him toward insanity. And many have. I do not need to list them here. The only saving grace for this troubled state of existence, perhaps, is the fact that, one, as an artist, he knows his work will bring him closer to the core of himself, and, two, there are other people out there that this understanding can be shared with and felt. Thus all those interactions he shied away from, speed walking back to his workspace; all those nights spent alone grinding away at some project; and all those small relationships he did not foster, are, in some way, forgiven. He finds people that he connects with on a further level; people that can understand the complications he is fascinated with and that are willing to revel in the ambiguity he is obsessed with dissecting. He finds people that see the world the same way he does.

In a perfect world, this is how it works. But this is rarely the case.

Culturally, we are in a dire moment. A project has been in place for the last half century––perhaps even longer––to wage war upon our minds and our sensibilities. Art, in the sense of a disinterested, made-thing, requiring one’s extended emotional and intellectual contemplation, is harder than ever to bring into this world. The appetite for real art has been taken away almost entirely. Our culture has come to operate on a dual-principal of shock and coddle; of exciting our senses to a point of unbearableness and then providing us shallow comfort and reaffirmation as we prepare for the next cycle of shock and terror. This being the state of our culture, perhaps we should not be that surprised that our art is beginning to represent the same principals. Art that disturbs now, must disturb entirely; it must not offer any space for thinking beyond thinking for a way of escape from the disturbance. And art that comforts must, similarly, comfort completely; it cannot offer a contradiction to its embrace. The mother cannot suddenly grow hysterical; or if she does, she must remain so forever.

This is a difficult space to bring forth work that is interested in exploring the gray areas of life and experience. For one, the institutions that were once in place to house such work, as a product of this ever-growing cloud over our culture, are being forced to batten down the hatches. Simply surveying the submission guidelines of most journals and publications in the country, one is struck by the overwhelming focus on what is not allowed to be published rather than what they are interested in exploring. Viewing the work published in the spaces, one should not be surprised––disturbed perhaps, but certainly not surprised––to find a complete homogeneity of art and expression. Success, even within the niche crevices of the art world is becoming formulaic; an attempt to win the attention of an increasingly distracted and traumatized populace. The war against our minds marches on. It has made its way to our front door now. Our art is losing its edge. We have ceased to be daring. All that one seems capable of clinging to is the vague hope of success and escape from this predicament, this ailment, of being an artist. All one can hope for is rapture from this state; for approval by some faceless and voiceless body out there in the ether, brushing by your work without a single care.

This, obviously, is not how it should be. New places need to be constructed where the weird and risky can thrive and grow. And not only should that space foster truly creative and complicated works, it should function as a real home for real people to experience these works and communicate with and about them. This is not a defense of hate, nor is it a decrying of progressivism. This is a hope that we can move to the next step of expression; to break away from our repressive state and begin to contemplate a broader range of work with serious, aesthetic attention.

Art, as I understand it, is the only space that you are allowed to push the boundaries of your intellect, moral understanding, and ethical reasoning completely boundlessly and without shame. You are allowed to ask the questions that sit shamefully on your heart. You are encouraged to look through the eyes of someone you would often think you could never connect with or that you know you should despise. And you are given the freedom, in all of this, to form judgements not based on what you are told or what the masses are saying, but by what you truly feel. This is because art is pretend; a created thing. And its artificiality allows us to escape from the entrapment of our all-too-real existence and explore the connections that exist outside of our direct eyesight. And this is important. This is perhaps the most important thing there is. This is the thing that the artist shelves the many pleasures of life in service to. And this is an incredibly dire thing in terms of one’s capacity to act human.

Empathy, like truth, must be tested, constantly and tirelessly. It must be stretched and attacked. This is because empathy is also a created thing. It is fluid and dependent upon the many complexities of one’s life and time. It is a projection of the self out of the steel trap of one’s own mind into the complete unknowingness of another. It is slippery and nonsensical. And as such, it must be explored and questioned through the device best equipped for such an exploration: art. What is on the line is a broadening not only of one’s senses and capacity for appreciation; but, rather, one’s ability to act truly humanely.

This is what we are building a home for. We are building a place in which voice is given to that which cannot be described through standard language and signs. We are building a community in which artists can communicate directly and expand upon each other’s works. And we are building a home for work that challenges our notions of normalcy and truth. And we are creating a space in which one is allowed to truly explore every crevice of the consciousness and soul.

Simply, we are building a cult.

–JH