1. Today there is a promising Artistic
Rearmament in contrast to Moral Rearmament. Europe is facing a great revolution,
a unique cultural putsch.
2. Art is the last domain of freedom, and will defend it with every
resource.
3. We are daring to raise our voice against the monstrous colossus the
technological machine. We oppose the logical way of mind which has led
to cultural devastation. The automatic, functional attitude has led to
stubborn mindlessness, to academicism, to the atom bomb.
4. The renewal of the world beyond democracy and communism will only
come about through a restoration of individualism, not through the collective
will.
5. In order to be created, culture must be destroyed.
6. Such terms as culture, truth, eternity, do not interest us artists.
We have to be able to survive. The material and spiritual position of
art is so desperate that a painter should not be expected to be obliging
when he paints. Let the established do the obligatory.
7. Basic research is purely scholarly and practical research purely
technical. Artistic research is free and has nothing to do with the scholastic
nor with the technical. We oppose the present trend to turn art into a
pseudo-science, an instrument of technological stupefication. Art draws
from an instinct, from the elemental creative forces. These wild, unharnessed
forces urge ever on to the creation of new, unexpected forms - much to
the annoyance of all intellectual spectators.
8. Art is a resounding stroke of the gong, its lingering sound the raised
voices of the imitators fading into thin air. Its transference into the
technical deadens artistic strength.
9. Art has nothing to do with truth. Truth lies between entities. To
want to be objective is one-sided. To be one-sided is pedantic and boring.
10. We are all-embracing.
11. It is all over, the tired generation, the angry one... Now is the
turn of the kitsch generation. WE DEMAND KITSCH, DIRT, PRIMEVAL SLIME,
THE DESERT. Art is the dung heap upon which kitsch grows. Kitsch is
the daughter of art. The daughter is young and smells good, the mother
is an ancient stinking hag. We just want one thing - to disseminate kitsch.
12. We demand ERROR. The Constructivists and the Communists have
eliminated error and live in eternal truth. We are against truth, against
happiness, against satisfaction, against the free conscience, against
the fat stomach, against HARMONY. Error is the most glorious accomplishment
of mankind! What is man here for? To add new error to errors of the past,
no longer meet for him.
13. Instead of abstract idealism we call for honest nihilism. The greatest
crimes of man are committed in the names of Truth, Honesty, Progress,
for a better future.
14. Abstract painting has become empty aestheticism, a playground for
the lazy minded who seek an easy pretext for the chewing-over once again
of long outdated truths.
15. Abstract painting is a HUNDREDFOLD MASTICATED PIECE OF CHEWING
GUM stuck underneath the edge of the table. Today the Constructivists
and the structuralist painters are trying to lick off this long dried
up piece of chewing gum once again.
16. Abstraction has given us the commonplace of 4 dimensional space.
The painting of the future is POLYDIMENSIONAL. Endless dimensions
await us.
17. Art historians manufacture intellectual dinner conversations from
every necessary spiritual revolution. WE SHALL SET AGAINST THIS OBJECTIVE
NON-COMMITTALISM A MILITANT DICTATORSHIP OF THE SPIRIT.
18. It is not our fault that we can paint well. We even make efforts
to do so. We are arrogant and eccentric. We scorn every definition.
19. WE ARE THE THIRD ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONIST WAVE. WE ARE THE THIRD
DADA WAVE. WE ARE THE THIRD FUTURIST WAVE. WE ARE THE THIRD SURREALIST
WAVE
20. WE ARE THE THIRD WAVE. We are a sea of waves (SITUATIONISM)
21. It is only through us that the world can be cleared of its debris.
WE ARE THE PAINTERS OF THE FUTURE!
>SPUR 1958<
H.Prem H.P.Zimmer E.Eisch H.Sturm L.Fischer A.Jorn D.Rempt G.Britt G.Stadler