M26 Aktual Art

Manifesto of Aktual Art (1964)

The Czech group Aktual Art published their manifesto in October 1964 in the first edition of their illegal underground art journal Aktualní umêní (Contemporary Art), each copy of which was hand typed and distributed privately to protagonists in the Prague avant-garde art scene. In it they declared their aim: ‘TO SHOCK, FASCINATE, LAY BARE THE NERVES!’

The group rejected the official art of the state, Socialist Realism, and promoted an interventionist art that would rejuvenate the culture of Czechoslovakia and beyond. This took the form of street happenings: they would perform small, seemingly insignificant tasks that expressed their opposition to the idea of artworks as commodities. Art should inspire wonder, they argued, not artefacts. For nonconformists in Cold War Eastern Europe, the simple, spontaneous nature of happenings made it difficult for the authorities to police. Requiring few props, they could be performed anywhere, at any time, and could be witnessed by the ordinary public. Consequently, they were central to the artistic practice that informed many of the most significant East European art manifestos of the 1960s and 70s, including those of Gorgona (M20), Tadeusz Kantor (M25), HAPPSOC (M28), Július Koller (M30), the OHO group (M32) and Gyula Pauer (M44).

Aktual Art published a second manifesto two years later, ‘AKTUAL: LIVE OTHERWISE’ (‘AKTUAL: ŽÍT JINAK’), which expanded on the same theme. It exhorted artists to create little acts of protest in order to rid society of ‘all that is cramped and deformed’. To do this, the group suggested imposing ‘small atonements’ on oneself, like wearing a coat on a hot summer’s day or refusing to remove one’s hand from a burning stove.

* * *

Our starting point is the basic feeling of an individual committed to everything that surrounds him. Our being and our end is commitment.

TOTAL COMMITMENT!

We are aware that man is drowning in the enormous abundance of products of the 20th century; we are concerned about him, maximally concerned, because he is us. US.

We have no utopian dreams of getting rid of the often monstrous advantages of the 20th century, but we want him (man) to be aware that they exist to serve him, and not he to serve them.

This is what we want!

Therefore we announce a program of

AKTUAL ART.

We are not interested in aesthetic norms that serve as a measure of perfection. We are interested in man. To overcome the indifference and emotional apathy so typical for modern man,

we will use,

WE MUST USE

forms that have the maximum effect.

Therefore

NATURALISM

BANALITY

MAXIMALISM

PROVOCATION

PERVERSION

ETC.

TO SHOCK, FASCINATE, LAY BARE THE NERVES!

Convince.

TO CONVINCE MAXIMALLY!

Milan Knížák, Jan Mach, Vit Mach,

Soňa Švecová, Jan Trtílek