James Mann

Manifesto of Vandalism James Mann

Publisher Marketing: "Vandalism has no prescriptive, authoritarian principles, but rather maintains an objective openness to all the possibilities of artistic expression. These can be based upon any sources and resources whatever of technique and subject that are to be recovered, found, or invented from within the entire, complex range of culture. Vandalism rises in the wake of Post-modernism as a total exploration and exploitation of expressive resources and potential, an entirely emergent aesthetic for incorporating many different kinds of artistic manifestation from the widest practical range of cultural levels and cultural origins." "The only tradition to be invoked today is the former tradition. The tradition itself is deceased, having been analytically dismantled and culturally transcended. It has become a historical designation. The former tradition was both authoritarian and prescriptive, and as such that tradition will not be revived, restored, or reinstated. It is now in a condition of complete explanatory collapse, and it can never be imposed anew. As a working method or set of principles for creating effective new art, a solid foundation to fall back upon when fruitful originality fails, the former tradition is gone forever." Originally a professor of literature, James Mann taught at universities in the U. S. and abroad. He later served a decade as Curator of the Las Vegas Art Museum. With its main focus on painting, this manifesto explains his thinking on the present condition and most advanced frontier of the fine arts. It is published jointly with his long poem Tombstone Confidential, which is a full literary exemplification of the forward-looking aesthetic described and defined in this book.