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> Neoism / 'Neoism', launched around 1978 by David Zack (U.S.A.) and Al Ackermann (U.S.A.), was a parody art movement and can be seen as a 'multiple name'. 'Neoism' was an open movement and each artist was free to call him/herself a 'neoist' and could contribute, re-interprete and add upon a given structure, to develop the movement according to their own needs. During its history three central strategies became an imported part of the 'Neoism' philosophy, namely the use of 'multiple names', 'art strike' and 'plagiarism'. The 'Neoism' movement represents the de-institutionalised art world and was itself a critique on being an "art movement". The movement had practitioners in Canada, the U.S.A. and in most countries in Western Europe. 'Neoism' found its origine in Portland (Oregon) when Zack and Ackermann started with the concept of 'multiple names'. In collaboration with and as homage to two friends with similar sounding names, namely Maris Kudzins (Canada) and Istvan Kantor (Canada) (who lived at that time in Hungary), Zack launched the 'Monty Cantsin' open-pop-star project in 1978. The use of multiple names was a reaction against false individualism in capitalist society, by artists using the same identity, or even descirtion was impossible. Everyone could adopt the name and in this way achieve pop stardom. A little bit later Zack, Ackerman and Kudzins founded the group that later became 'Neoism'. Hungarian Istvan Kantor was one of the first to use 'Monty Cantsin'. Zack met Kantor in Hungary and encouraged him to move to the U.S.A. which he did in 1978. He stayed with Zack and Ackermann but his lack of English made it difficult for him to realise the term 'Neoism' was a joke. In 1979 Kantor moved to Montreal and, according to Ackerman, the word 'Neoism' was coined by Kantor soon after his arrival there. In Montreal Kantor gathered a group of younger artists around him and fashioned a collective identity for them as the 'Neoists'. Kantor became the fierce advocate of 'Neoism' and used the name the next five years. As he primarily worked as 'Monty Cantsin' for several years, Kantor said that he was the first and one and only 'Monty Cantsin' and his activities became associated with 'Monty Cantsin'. This caused that splinter groups started to develop their own groups, when they saw that Kantor made an open name his own. One of these splinter groups was centered around Stewart Home (United Kingdom) from London. Before he came in contact with 'Neoism' and the open name concept, he launched in February 1984 the magazine Smile. A few months later in late April of 1984 he read about the 'Neoist' movement for the first time. By Smile's second issue in April 1984 he suggested to call all magazines Smile, to question authorship and anonymity and a creation in a collective approach to a shared or "open concept". Smile became soon the publication to propagate and develop its cultural critique through the three central strategies of 'Neoism', especially 'Plagiarism'. Material published in Smile was mostly 'plagiarism' from within the Mail-Art network and also from other issues and versions of Smile as well. Even material from sources outside 'Neoism' and Mail-Art was used. Home called for the organisation of 'Festivals of Plagiarism', which was based on an end to the importance of originality as a component of the creative process. Neoists met each other in 'Neoist Apartment Festivals' or in 'Festivals of Plagiarism' in Austria, U.S.A., Italy, and many other countries up to the end of the nineties. 'Plagiarism' desires to remove ideas from a commodity driven economy and bring them back to an emphasis on its human value. While 'Plagiarism' has become for Mail-Art plagiarists a justification of photocopied collages. Home started also his own 'open name', 'Karen Eliot', as a reaction against Kantor calling himself the one and only 'Monty Cantsin'. The name 'Karen Eliot' has been created specifically for the 'Neoism' movement, and is described as a multiple signature for any form of (anti-)art, a kind of cultural terrorist. By 1986, after an argumentative 'Neoist Festival' in Ponte Nossa (Italy) organised by Emilio Morandi, Home had completely broken with 'Neoism'. He proposed a successor "movement" called 'Praxis', and focused on promoting the 'Art Strike' for 1990 to 1993. Originally put forward by himself in 1985 as class war against commody culture, the notion took on a life of it's own after 'Art Strike Action Committees' were established in such diverse locations as San Francisco, Baltimore, Ireland, and Uruguay. According to 'Praxis', all previous attempts at "revolutionary" art were inevitably subject to bourgeois recuperation. The solution, then, is a "refusal of creativity": "from 1990 to 1993 … artists will not produce work, sell work, permit work to go on exhibition, … This total withdrawal of labour is the most extreme collective challenge that artists can make to the state."
With his call for a literal art strike, he turned 'Neoism' from theory to practice. When he did not found followers for his 'Praxis' movement and saw that 'Neoism' was still alive, he returned to 'Neoism' and started to promote himself as "Neoism's primary theorist". He connected his 'Praxis' with 'Neoism' and the 'Art Strike' became part of 'Neoism'. The identity as an art "movement" that 'Neoists' tried to avoid was at the same time necessary when they wanted to make central strategies (art strike, plagiarism, etc.) significant, Home needed to turn the theory into practice from a non-movement to an actual movement that found itself in Mail-Art. This upset critics (often other 'Neoists') accusing Home of trying to historify 'Neoism' and turn it into an avant-garde movement, while 'Neoism's' goal was to create the illusion that there was a movement called 'Neoism'.
Most of the publications about 'Neoism' come from Home. But the historification by Home is inaccurate, in the book Neoist Manifestos for example he make writings which have been published earlier under multiple names his own. In contradiction with Zack and Ackerman whose only main feature of the 'Monty Cantsin' identity was to achieve fame, Stewart Home saw multiple names as a tool for political subversion instead. Home's political aspirations for his investigation were revealed by his choice of book title, The Assault on Culture. Consequently, trying to get a correct history of 'Neoism' is almost impossible. Members were encouraged to create a different, opposite or fake histories and to spread confussion. Second, quarrels among Neoists and, later writers about 'Neoism', make it more difficult to get a true perspective of the movement especially in light of the ambitions of some Neoists who wanted to use 'Neoism' to make career in the artworld declaring themselves as the driving force of the movement. All of these various forces led to a split after the '9th International Neoist Apartment Festival' in 1985 in Ponte Nossa (Italy) organised by Emillio Morandi. Several members had a different look on 'Neoism'. For example one saw the use of multiple names as practical for not tracing the tracks while another see it from a point of view of art theory. Within 'Neoism' the struggle between theory and the practice has been a major problem.
'Neoism' was present in Mail-Art in the late eighties, but Mail-Art has never been a substantial part of 'Neoism'. Mail-artists took from 'Neoism' what was of interest for them without adapting their activities to the theory of 'Neoism' or add any substantial result to 'Neoism'. The most important contribution of Mail-Art in 'Neoism' was not the products which have been created, but the structure of interaction which has evolved. As such, Mail-Art proves to be a perfect expression of the collective personality, a collective and interactive approach to art. By 1985 the correspondence art network was packed with people using the Cantsin identity and countless editions of Smile had been produced by different individuals and groups world-wide. The theory of the 'Art Strike' was present in the Mail-Art network but was as quick as it came forgotten in the year 1990 and seems in contradiction with the year 1992 as the 'Decentralized Networker Congress' year. 'Neoism', had its roots in Fluxus and Situationism but was also influenced by Dada, punk and the industrial cultures. Fluxus was the inspiration for several aesthetic experiments within 'Neoism' such as performances, artists' books, video art and festivals. The Fluxus Festivals of the early sixties have inspired 'Neoism' for their 'apartment Festivals' which have been held in Germany, Italy, Canada, England and Canada, among other nations. If Fluxus was conceived as a critique of Modernist "movement" as actual stasis, 'Neoism' was meant in large measure as a critique of the very notion of the art "movement". 'Neoism' privileges non-object activities, it criticises the production of art as a market product and at the same time the creation of a process of theoretical and practical dialogue. For the Neoist, art is a privilege of the values of "individuality" and "creativity" which is denied by the economic reality of capitalism. Being an artist is a contradiction in a society in which culture, in all its forms (fine art, television, advertising) is a primary agent of political domination. So the relationship with their own "creativity" can only be doubtful.
False histories are endlessly generated to constantly breathe new life into the neoist myth and to resist art-historification. 'Neoism' has perfected this technique, surpassing its forebears Dada, Situationist, and Fluxus to the extent that even now, some thirty years after the movement started, art historians have done their best to ignore it, or to treat it as only a footnote to the more historical clear Mail-Art movement. Related Topics: [11] Festival [12] Karen Eliot [13] Morandi, Emilio [14] Praxis [15] Art Strike [16] Metzger, Gustav [17] Art-historification [18] Theory [19] Mail-Art [20] Network [21] Photocopy [22] Collage [23] Fluxus [24] Situationism [25] Dada [26] Punk [27] Industrial culture [28] Books [29] Video art [30] Critique [31] Art production References: Date last update: 18 June 2006 |
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