In our continuing series of feminist art manifestos, we present “A Manifesto” (1970) by Agnes Denes, a Hungarian-born American conceptual artist. Denes has described her work as ranging “between individual creation and social consciousness. It addresses the challenges of global survival and is often monumental in scale.”
Working with a paradox
defining the elusive
visualizing the invisible
communicating the incommunicable
not accepting the limitations society has accepted
seeing in new ways
living for a fraction of a second and penetrating light years
using intellect and instinct to achieve intuition
achieving total self-consciousness and self-awareness
being creatively obsessive
questioning, reasoning, analyzing, dissecting and re-examining
understanding the finitude of human existence and still striving to create beauty and provocative reasoning
finding new concepts, recognizing new patterns
desiring to know the importance or insignificance of existence
seeing reality and still being able to dream
persisting in the eternal search
Above image: Wheatfield – A Confrontation, 1982, by Agnes Denes