Manifesto for Common Art
Part 0: An Address
This is a manifesto for common people. Common people work. We are commoners. We are workers. We are the commons. Our work fulfills our common needs. Art is a common need.
This is a manifesto for the working artists with day jobs, night jobs, or all-the-damn-time jobs. This is a manifesto for workers who don’t know they are also artists.
This is a manifesto for retail clerks, fast food workers, baristas, retail workers, maids, nannies, janitors, parents, beauticians, landscapers, dog-walkers, office and IT workers, assistants, nurses, teachers, homecare workers, mechanics, electricians, plumbers, flight attendants, pilots, cabbies, and drivers.
This is a manifesto for farmers, fishermen, pickers, meat processors and packers, miners, drillers, and derrickhands.
This is a manifesto for assemblers, fabricators, machinists, moulders, welders, pipefitters, operators, techs, production engineers, receivers, warehouse workers, deckhands, dockers, and truckers.
This is a manifesto for full-time workers, part-time workers, temporary workers, and workers in the “gig” economy. This is a manifesto for documented and undocumented workers. This is a manifesto for waged and unwaged workers.
This is a manifesto for all workers -- named and unnamed.
This is a manifesto for common people. Common people work. We are commoners. We are workers. We are the commons. Our work fulfills our common needs. Art is a common need.
This is a manifesto for the working artists with day jobs, night jobs, or all-the-damn-time jobs. This is a manifesto for workers who don’t know they are also artists.
This is a manifesto for retail clerks, fast food workers, baristas, retail workers, maids, nannies, janitors, parents, beauticians, landscapers, dog-walkers, office and IT workers, assistants, nurses, teachers, homecare workers, mechanics, electricians, plumbers, flight attendants, pilots, cabbies, and drivers.
This is a manifesto for farmers, fishermen, pickers, meat processors and packers, miners, drillers, and derrickhands.
This is a manifesto for assemblers, fabricators, machinists, moulders, welders, pipefitters, operators, techs, production engineers, receivers, warehouse workers, deckhands, dockers, and truckers.
This is a manifesto for full-time workers, part-time workers, temporary workers, and workers in the “gig” economy. This is a manifesto for documented and undocumented workers. This is a manifesto for waged and unwaged workers.
This is a manifesto for all workers -- named and unnamed.
Part 1: History
Since the rosy dawn of capitalism, the commons have been expropriated for the few at the expense of the many. Art has been stolen from the people. It has been hoarded by the wealthy and the privileged to the exclusion of the many. Art either sits in the homes or institutions of the wealthy, or it doesn’t matter. Artists are either professionals, or they are not artists at all. Art is either highly valuable or not valuable at all, depending on the tastes of a few and the money it accrues.
Since the rosy dawn of capitalism, the commons have been expropriated for the few at the expense of the many. Art has been stolen from the people. It has been hoarded by the wealthy and the privileged to the exclusion of the many. Art either sits in the homes or institutions of the wealthy, or it doesn’t matter. Artists are either professionals, or they are not artists at all. Art is either highly valuable or not valuable at all, depending on the tastes of a few and the money it accrues.
Part 2: Art History
Against the force of an oppressive history, there is the force of a liberatory history. This history belongs to the workers in all their forms. Art is part of this history. It is a history of putting down ploughs and push brooms. It is a history of shutting down computer programs and shutting down workplaces. It is a history of subversion. It is a history of ‘not supposed to’s. Picking strings instead of crops. Singing and talking instead of keeping forced silence. Making beauty out of necessity. Wrestling meaning from the yoke of domination.
Against the force of an oppressive history, there is the force of a liberatory history. This history belongs to the workers in all their forms. Art is part of this history. It is a history of putting down ploughs and push brooms. It is a history of shutting down computer programs and shutting down workplaces. It is a history of subversion. It is a history of ‘not supposed to’s. Picking strings instead of crops. Singing and talking instead of keeping forced silence. Making beauty out of necessity. Wrestling meaning from the yoke of domination.
Part 3: Art/Work
Art is our time. Art is the realm of freedom, freedom from the need to survive, freedom from the dictates of the boss, freedom from drudgery, freedom from stagnation, freedom from stupefaction.
Art is the freedom to make our world meaningful, freedom to make our world beautiful, freedom to make something of our own with our time and resources, freedom to think, freedom to feel, freedom to imagine, freedom to dream, freedom to sense (to taste, to hear, to smell, to touch, to see).
All work that is alienating I will simply call work. All work that is not alienating I will call art.
This is work. Type up a resume -- and it better have a cover letter, too. Follow the form directions exactly to submit your application. Don’t make a single mistake. Market yourself. Be only what your potential employer wants you to be. Make it your life to be somebody else, and do it so well that you forget who you are.
Do all this for a low wage job. Do all this so you can do one little thing, over and over. Do all this just to live. You are valuable only as long as you are valuable to someone else. Exude gratitude. Smile -- all the time. Work hard. Work harder. Work all the time to prove your value to someone else.
Instead, work as little as possible. Instead, make art. Not so you can work, but so you can live. Do it whenever you can. Do it all the time. Do it so much that you leave work early. Do it between keystrokes. Do it between the washing. Do it while not doing what you love. Do what you love so much that work is abolished and there is only what you love left. Do it so forcefully that the contradiction between work and art makes the world tremor and crack, and you can no longer go back.
Believe it is possible even if it isn’t. Act as though it is possible even if it isn’t. Push against the work day, the twelve hour day, the ten hour day, the eight hour day. Push it down.
Push it down so art can rise up -- This is work that is art.
This is artwork.
Art is our time. Art is the realm of freedom, freedom from the need to survive, freedom from the dictates of the boss, freedom from drudgery, freedom from stagnation, freedom from stupefaction.
Art is the freedom to make our world meaningful, freedom to make our world beautiful, freedom to make something of our own with our time and resources, freedom to think, freedom to feel, freedom to imagine, freedom to dream, freedom to sense (to taste, to hear, to smell, to touch, to see).
All work that is alienating I will simply call work. All work that is not alienating I will call art.
This is work. Type up a resume -- and it better have a cover letter, too. Follow the form directions exactly to submit your application. Don’t make a single mistake. Market yourself. Be only what your potential employer wants you to be. Make it your life to be somebody else, and do it so well that you forget who you are.
Do all this for a low wage job. Do all this so you can do one little thing, over and over. Do all this just to live. You are valuable only as long as you are valuable to someone else. Exude gratitude. Smile -- all the time. Work hard. Work harder. Work all the time to prove your value to someone else.
Instead, work as little as possible. Instead, make art. Not so you can work, but so you can live. Do it whenever you can. Do it all the time. Do it so much that you leave work early. Do it between keystrokes. Do it between the washing. Do it while not doing what you love. Do what you love so much that work is abolished and there is only what you love left. Do it so forcefully that the contradiction between work and art makes the world tremor and crack, and you can no longer go back.
Believe it is possible even if it isn’t. Act as though it is possible even if it isn’t. Push against the work day, the twelve hour day, the ten hour day, the eight hour day. Push it down.
Push it down so art can rise up -- This is work that is art.
This is artwork.
Part 4: Art is Not Professional
Art is not a profession. Art is liberated life. Art is common life in all its qualities -- from the everyday to the exceptional. It not only exists within white walls. It exists in the very social fabric of our lives. It exists in toothsome meals and feasts. It exists in the folds of skin and birthday cards. It exists in doodles and paintings, spontaneous and deliberate photographs. It exists in the rhythm of footsteps and drum beats. It exists in words and lyrics. To be an artist is not simply to have the right connections, resources, and credentials. To be an artist is to live with fullness; to breathe life into our inner greatness.
Art is not a profession. Art is liberated life. Art is common life in all its qualities -- from the everyday to the exceptional. It not only exists within white walls. It exists in the very social fabric of our lives. It exists in toothsome meals and feasts. It exists in the folds of skin and birthday cards. It exists in doodles and paintings, spontaneous and deliberate photographs. It exists in the rhythm of footsteps and drum beats. It exists in words and lyrics. To be an artist is not simply to have the right connections, resources, and credentials. To be an artist is to live with fullness; to breathe life into our inner greatness.
Part 5: Commoning Art
Our time calls for artists to become historical materialists.
A historical materialist sees the contradictions of life under capitalism.
As a materialist, one sees the contradictions fundamentally rooted in the ways we get what we need to survive: how we get housing, food, clothing, healthcare, education, and culture. The contradictions arise in the process of making our lives.
As a historian, they see the struggle to live as the force of history.
The materials required to make an art that would return it to the commons are the following: food, housing, healthcare, childcare, education, community and cultural centers, and time. These materials need to be equitably distributed to the many who lack sufficient amounts of them. The distribution can only be achieved by liberating materials from private hoarders, putting them into the hands of the people.
Those who have access to these materials already have a responsibility to fight for others to gain them. Let this be your art.
Those who don’t have access to these materials, take them. Take as much as you can. If you can take enough, make art.
Our time calls for artists to become historical materialists.
A historical materialist sees the contradictions of life under capitalism.
As a materialist, one sees the contradictions fundamentally rooted in the ways we get what we need to survive: how we get housing, food, clothing, healthcare, education, and culture. The contradictions arise in the process of making our lives.
As a historian, they see the struggle to live as the force of history.
The materials required to make an art that would return it to the commons are the following: food, housing, healthcare, childcare, education, community and cultural centers, and time. These materials need to be equitably distributed to the many who lack sufficient amounts of them. The distribution can only be achieved by liberating materials from private hoarders, putting them into the hands of the people.
Those who have access to these materials already have a responsibility to fight for others to gain them. Let this be your art.
Those who don’t have access to these materials, take them. Take as much as you can. If you can take enough, make art.
