Notes on a Manifesto

"Art is a universal and real expression of the creative energy which organises the progress of humanity."

(Congress of The International Union of Progressive Artists: Dusseldorf, May 1922)

(Art in Theory 1900 - 2000)

Joseph Beuys believed in universal creativity as a transformative social force, which is why he coined the term "everyone is an artist",. I interpret this statement more generally as everyone having "creative potential" them rather than a specific "artistic potential" which is an ever changing social construction determined by the artistic and social values of the time. If people discover their creative potential, or are given the opportunity to develop and express their artistic potential into an acceptable creative form, then it becomes socially accepted and called art.

The notion of art I take for given, as do I that specific forms of art are either accepted or rejected upon the given whims of the culture of the time. However, when I read anything concerning the notion of creativity as a transformative resource, rather than specifically as a power to make art, I am uplifted; As I am when I read about theories that also view art as having the same transformative power, above and beyond the notion of art for arts sake.

I do not see, nor feel there is a need for this separation between the idea of art as either a social force for change, and art simply for arts sake. To my mind these two competing ideologies are to be understood as relative parts of the whole; and in order to understand this point it helps to look at the social and historical concept of beauty...............but unfortunately it is now almost two 'o' clock in the afternoon, and as my kitchen cupboards are bare. The only thing I have eaten today thus far is a single kiwi fruit, so I must stop this babbling, become a temporary consumer of capitalism, and go to the supermarket.

David A.