Tonight I will be speaking at the opening of the inaugural exhibition of Blake Turner’s Manifesto Library at the Sean Christopher Gallery, here in Columbus. The Manifesto Library is a collection comprised of leftist, feminist, black, latino/a, guerrilla, african, militant, artists, economic, trans, queer, social, technological, and political manifestos. It is a recollection or monument to leftist political struggle that Turner initiated a few months ago and which he states: “given the recent turn of events, I believe it is desperately needed now.” He is collecting previously published works, and will publish manifestos in the public domain by the Library in the style of 1920s socialist pamphlets (5×7 saddle stitched). I will read and discuss The Minus Plato Manifesto below during the opening, where Turner has invited thinkers, artists, and academics to give informal talks on subjects of their choosing relating to manifestos. For more info on the exhibition, click here.
The Minus Plato Manifesto
Minus Plato is a blog about Classics and Modern/Contemporary Art
Minus Plato is a site for making connections
Between the ancient and the present, myths and paintings, matter and memes
It is a space for trying out ideas
About ethics and actions, lives and lessons, truth and beauty
It is an archive for experiments
In teaching and curating, for the Academy and the artist, for the art world and the Internet
But now Minus Plato has something to say
The moment has come for Minus Plato to make a declaration
(Now that Minus Plato is speaking every day)
(Now that Minus Plato has become a mourning diary)
(Now that Minus Plato needs to act)
Minus Plato is ready to address you
You may not be a Classicist
You may not be an Artist
But Minus Plato is addressing you
Minus Plato is telling you that you must change your life
Minus Plato will be your new guide
Minus Plato will be your new handbook
Minus Plato will be your new sabotage manual
You may have met Minus Plato while passing by on Google
You may know Minus Plato from your Facebook feed
You may have caught Minus Plato as a reTweet
But now you must act
Now you must follow us
(Like Zeno, reading about Socrates in a bookstore, when he saw Crates and followed him)
You must give up things you cling to
You must abandon certain entrenched ideas
You must live by example
(Like Hipparchia, seeing Crates in the street, followed him and became a Cynic)
This is what Minus Plato declares:
Today living creativity is the only responsible way to engage with and use the past
No more Classical Greek Art for Art’s sake
No more Ancient History for History’s sake
No more Classical Scholarship for Scholarship’s sake
No more Homerists for Homer’s sake
No more dead white men
No more living white emperors
What makes the Classical now is how people use it now
The Classical is for everybody’s use
No one owns the Classical
The Classical is everywhere
The Internet is Classical
Black Lives Matter is Classical
The everyday is Classical
This blog is Classical
Artists today use the Classical
Artists today turn to ancient Greek philosophy not for philosophy’s sake
Artists today use Latin not for grammar’s sake
Artists today use the old scholarship to become the new scholars
(Just as artists used to use the old theory to become the new theorists)
Artists today put antiquity in its place
Artists today put Classicists in their place
Artists today understand Nero
Classicists today will look to the Artists as guides
Classicists today will curate exhibitions on ancient sites
Classicists today will turn monographs into manifestos
Classicists today will teach Latin as activism
Classicists today will create the Suetonius Gallery
We are all these new Classicists
We must process the past to change the present
We must remember Carthage
We must sabotage the lessons of white supremacists
We must see Sappho everywhere
We cannot stop Nero being Nero
We cannot stop his tyrannical ego
We cannot stop lies becoming his truth
But we must call it
We must see it
We must study it
We must create from it
We must learn from it
Only then can we resist it.
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