Monday, October 25, 2010

BLAST 1: WYNDHAM LEWIS

BLAST is a literary magazine of the Vorticist movement written by Wyndham Lewis, it can almost be read as a punk manifesto, sharing much of its contradictions and revolutionary approach. Here are some extracts: 

We stand for the reality of the present-not for the sentimental future, or the sacripant past.

WE ONLY WANT THE WORLD TO LIVE, and to feel its crude energy flowing through us.

The moment a man feels or realizes himself as an artist, he ceases to belong to any milieu or time.

Popular art does not mean the art of the poor people, as it is usually supposed to. It means the art of the individuals.

To make the rich of the community shed their education skin, to destroy politeness, standardization and academic, that is civilized, vision, is the task we have set ourselves.

We want to make in England not a popular art, not a revival of lost folk art, or a romantic fostering of such unactual conditions, but to make individuals, wherever found.

We are against the glorification of ‘the people,’ as we are against snobbery. It is not necessary to be an outcast bohemian, to be unkempt or poor, any more than it is necessary to be rich or handsome, to be an artist. Art is nothing to do with the coat you wear. A top-hat can well hold the sixtine. A cheap cap could hide the image of Kephren.

AUTOMOBILISM (Marinetteism) bores us. We don’t want to go about making a hullo-bulloo about motor cars, anymore than about knives and forks, elephants or gas-pipes.

Blast presents an art of Individuals.

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