Art is conceptually defined by a self-perpetuating elite and is marketed as an international commodity; the activity of its production has been mystified and co-opted; its practitioners have become manipulable and marginalized through self-identification with the term "artist" and all it implies.
To call one person an artist is to deny another an equal gift of vision; thus the myth of the "genius" becomes an ideological justification for inequality, repression and famine. What an artist considers to be his or her identity is a schooled set of attitudes; preconceptions which imprison humanity in history.
It is the roles derived from these identities, as much as the art products mined from this reification, which we must reject.
Unlike Gustav Metzger's Art Strike of 1977 to 1980, the purpose is not to destroy those institutions which might be perceived as having a negative effect on artistic production. Instead, we intend to question the role of the artist itself and its relation to the dynamics of power within our specific culture.
Everybody knows what's wrong
We call this Art Strike because, like any general strike, the real reasons being discussed are ones of economics and selfdetermination. We call this Art Strike in order to make explicit the political and ethical motivations for this attempted large-scale manipulation of alleged "esthetic" objects and relationships. We call this Art Strike to connote and encourage active rather than passive engagement with the issues at hand.