Art sabotage strives to be perfectly exemplary but at the same time retain
an element of opacity - not propaganda but æsthetic shock - apallingly
direct yet also subtly angled - action-as-metaphor.
Art Sabotage is the dark side of Poetic Terrorism - creation through
destruction - but it cannot serve any Party, nor any nihilism, nor even art
itself. Just as the banishment of illusion enhances awareness, so the
demolition of æsthetic blight sweetens the air of the world of
discourse, of the Other. Art Sabotage serves only consciousness,
attentiveness, awakeness.
A-S goes beyond paranoia, beyond
deconstruction - the ultimate criticism - physical attack on offensive art
- æsthetic jihad. The slightest taint of petty ego-icity or even of
personal taste spoils its purity & vitiates its force.
A-S can never seek power - only
release it.
Individual artworks (even the worst) are largely irrelevant -
A-S seeks to damage institutions
which use art to diminish consciousness & profit by delusion. This or
that poet or painter cannot be condemned for lack of vision - but malign
Ideas can be assaulted through the artifacts they generate. MUZAK is
designed to hypnotize & control - its machinery can be smashed.
Public book burnings - why should rednecks & Customs officials
monopolize this weapon? Novels about children possessed by demons; the
New York Times bestseller list; feminist tracts against
pornography; schoolbooks (especially Social Studies, Civics, Health); piles
of New York Post, Village Voice & other
supermarket papers; choice gleanings of Xtian
publishers; a few Harlequin Romances - a festive atmosphere, wine-bottles
& joints passed around on a clear autumn afternoon.
To throw money away at the Stock Exchange was
pretty decent Poetic Terrorism - but to destroy the money would
have been good Art Sabotage. To seize
TV transmission & broadcast a few
pirated minutes of incendiary Chaote art would constitute a feat of
PT - but simply to blow up the
transmission tower would be perfectly adequate Art Sabotage. If certain
galleries & museums deserve an occasional brick through their windows -
not destruction, but a jolt to complacency - then what about BANKS?
Galleries turn beauty into a commodity but banks transmute Imagination into
feces and debt. Wouldn't the world gain a degree of beauty with each bank
that could be made to tremble… or fall? But how? Art
Sabotage should probably stay away from politics (it's so boring) - but not
from banks.
Don't picket - vandalize. Don't protest - deface. When ugliness, poor
design & stupid waste are forced upon you, turn Luddite, throw your
shoe in the works, retaliate. Smash the symbols of the Empire in the name
of nothing but the heart's longing for grace.
