IMPORTANT BOOKS

(or, Manifestoes Read by Children)

^{IMPORTANT BOOKS is a new artwork and year-long curatorial project from Hotel regular Stanley SCHTINTER, called IMPORTANT BOOKS—a partnership with London’s WHITECHAPEL GALLERY that presents the first comprehensive sonic history of the manifesto in art and politics. Delivered weekly across a whole year—May 2021 to May 2022—SCHTINTER’s extensive selection ranges across time, place and all aspects of human life, radical possibility and creative aspiration. Among the many manifestos to be read, you will find The Speech Delivered by Sojourner’s Truth to the 1851 Women’s Rights Convention (Akron, Ohio); the S.C.U.M. Manifesto; Wear Sunscreen; The People Behind The Mop Buckets; Abolish Restaurants; The Angry Brigade Communiques; The Theatre of Cruelty; A Declaration from the Poor oppressed People of England; Women in the Year 2000; Maxims & Arrows; Manifesto of Prole Art; Lessons of Darkness; A Familiar Preface; Dada Manifesto; Futurist Manifesto; Living Theatre Declaration; Cheap Manifesto; Truisms; Women’s Art Manifesto; Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell Manifesto; Auto-destructive Manifesto; Willem Van SPRONSEN’s Manifesto; 100 Impossible Artworks; and Anarchists Have Forgotten Their Principles, amongst others.}

For a CUMULATIVE
ARCHIVE
of IMPORTANT BOOKS,
SEE HERE.

^#1

^{THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO}

^{As read by BOY, 8 ...
South East LONDON}

^{To celebrate the onset of this series, a numbered and handmade cassette (in a limited edition of thirty) is available from purge.xxx. With on-body screen print and eco-x slip; each copy contains a riso-printed cigarette card with Marx’s bust by Louis BENASSI.}
See here.

^#2

^{SPEECH GIVEN by
SOJOURNER TRUTH at the
WOMEN’s CONVENTION
in OHIO, 1851}

^{As read by GIRL, 6, KENT ...}

^{Renowned for both her song and speech, SOJOURNER TRUTH (born Isabella “Belle” BAUMFREE, 1797) changed her name to TRUTH in 1843 with the conviction that God had called her to leave the city and go into the countryside to ‘[testify to] the hope that was in her.’ This testimony would lead to a lifelong investment in the cause of abolitionism, women’s rights, and an active participation in protest movements concerning the recruitment and rights of black soldiers during the American Civil War and equal access to land and work.

To hear the 1851 speech at the Ohio Women’s Convention in full in the IMPORTANT BOOKS archive, see here.

To read the speech as first published by THE ANTI-SLAVERY BUGLE in 1851, see here (courtesy of the LIBRARY OF CONGRESS). To compare the 1851 BUGLE publication and the censored, altered and widely circulated iteration as published in the NEW YORK INDEPENDENT, 1863, see here (courtesy of the SOJOURNER TRUTH PROJECT).}

^#3

^{BAN THE BOMB—
BRUSSELS PROVOVATION №.I
(the PROVO LIQUIDATION

COMMITTEE)}

^{As read by BOY, 9,

WEST MIDLANDS ...}

^{‘The fundamental characteristic of anarchism is its attack on authority. Not a special authority—church, state or property-but authority as such. Here lies the fundamental difference with other socialists—with Marxists, social-democrats and communists. ‘You are creating a new authority of the so-called scientific socialism, and the bearers of your scientific socialism will become a new class of rulers and bureaucrats, more intolerant even than the capitalist class ...’ was the prophetic warning of Bakunin to Marx and his authoritarian followers, repeated again and again in anarchist propaganda. Indeed, nearly all Marxist schools had, and still have, one thing in common in their theories and practical policies: they hope to change the world by using a power structure and authority. So they are always fighting—either in a revolutionary or in a reformist way, as parliamentary democrats or totalitarians—for power. Their appeal to the masses has always been: give us the power to do things, to change things.’}

^{Rudolf de JONG,

‘Provos and Kabouters,’

Anarchism Today, 1971}

^#4

^{THE COSMIC
REDISTRIBUTION SERVICE}

^{As read by BOY, 9,
WEST MIDLANDS ...}

^{‘The universe that we see today is very lumpy. There are planets, stars, galaxies, and clusters of galaxies. Yet when we look at the afterglow from the Big Bang, we see an incredibly smooth glow across the sky. So how did the matter in the Universe get to be so lumpy after starting out so smooth?

Astronomers generally agree that gravity shaped the evolution of the lumps we see in the universe today. The force of gravity between different chunks of matter caused the chunks to pull together into one body, and then that body pulled in more material, similar to a snowball rolling downhill, picking up more snow as it goes.

But each snowball must have a beginning—a small “seed” around which the other material will gather. Observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB)—which is as close as we can get to seeing the universe near its beginning—show that it has a temperature that is very close to uniform. The temperature of the CMB is a tracer of where matter was in the very early universe. If the temperature was completely uniform, there would be no seeds for gravitational collapse—no way to form the lumps we see today.’}

_{NASA,

‘The Lumpy Universe’}

^#5

^{WOMEN’S ART—A MANIFESTO
by VALIE EXPORT}

^{As read by GIRL, 9,
CAMBRIDGESHIRE ...}

_{Top—C. HEDEGUS & D.A. PENNEBAKER’s TOWN BLOODY HALL (1979); Bottom—Rehearsal footage from the WOOSTER GROUP’s theatrical interpretation and restaging of the film, THE TOWN HALL AFFAIR (2017).}

^#6

^{ABOLISH RESTAURANTS—
A MANIFESTO
by PROLE}

^{As read by BOY, 10,
NORTH LONDON ...}

^{While the McNugget was developed internally by Rene AREND—a chef who had served Hollywood stars and European royalty alike before McDonald’s hired him—the birth of the Big Mac is arguably more storied.

The Big Mac was born at a McDonald’s in Uniontown, Pennsylvania in 1967 (one year before its official birthday). According to ADWEEK, franchisee Jim DELLIGATTI created the now-famous sandwich in a moment of frustration. His main customers—men working in the steel mills nearby—had huge appetites, and all he had to offer them was a regular cheeseburger. So, he decided to experiment with an alternative pitch that incorporated two beef patties, stabilized by a center bun—topped with lettuce, pickles onions—and finished with a “special sauce.” The impact of the Big Mac, 550 million of which are eaten each year in the United States and which appears—in some form or another—on McDonald’s menus in six continents.

Following DELLIGATTI’s death at 98 (December 2016)—and in a nod to the ubiquity of his sandwich—several obituaries noted THE BIG MAC INDEX, which THE ECONOMIST introduced some 30 years ago. The index serves as “a lighthearted guide to whether currencies are at their ‘correct’ level,” by tracking the cost of a Big Mac around the globe. But for all these triumphs, DELLIGATTI never enjoyed much fame or celebrity in the wake of his creation. In fact, he constantly battled the misconception that the world’s best-selling sandwich had made him billions. “Everybody thinks it did,” he told the PITTSBURGH POST GAZETTE back in 2007; “but no way. All I got was a plaque.”

Adam CHANDLER

‘The Genius Behind the Big Mac’

The ATLANTIC}

^#7

^{SCUM MANIFESTO—
by Valerie SOLANAS}

^{As read by BOY, 9,
NORTH LONDON ...}

^#8

^{TEN POINT PROGRAM—
by Huey P. NEWTON
& Bobby SEALE}

^{As read by GIRL, 8,
EAST LONDON ...}

_{Stanley SCHTINTER has been described as an ‘artist’ by the Daily Mail and as an ‘exorcist’ by the Daily Star.

See schtinter.net;

& purge.xxx.}

IMPORTANT BOOKS

(or, Manifestoes Read by Children)

#1

THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO

As read by BOY, 8 ... South East LONDON

#2

SPEECH GIVEN by SOJOURNER TRUTH at the WOMEN’s CONVENTION in OHIO, 1851

As read by GIRL, 6, KENT ...

#3

BAN THE BOMB— BRUSSELS PROVOVATION №.I (the PROVO LIQUIDATION COMMITTEE)

As read by BOY, 9, WEST MIDLANDS ...

#4

THE COSMIC REDISTRIBUTION SERVICE

As read by BOY, 9, WEST MIDLANDS ...

#5

WOMEN’S ART—A MANIFESTO by VALIE EXPORT

As read by GIRL, 9, CAMBRIDGESHIRE ...

#6

ABOLISH RESTAURANTS— A MANIFESTO by PROLE

As read by BOY, 10, NORTH LONDON ...

#7

SCUM MANIFESTO— by Valerie SOLANAS

As read by BOY, 9, NORTH LONDON ...

#8

TEN POINT PROGRAM— by Huey P. NEWTON & Bobby SEALE

As read by GIRL, 8, EAST LONDON ...

^#1