The Dadaist manifesto by Ribemont-Dessaignes. Feb 1920.

TO THE PUBLIC
Before going down among you to pull out your decaying
teeth, your running ears, your tongue full of sores,
Before breaking your putrid bones,
Before opening your cholera infested belly and taking
out for use as fertiliser your too fatted liver, your ignoble
spleen and your diabetic kidneys,
Before tearing out your ugly sexual organ, incontinent
and slimy,
Before extinguishing your appetite for beauty, ecstasy, sugar,
philosophy, mathematical and poetic metaphysical
pepper and cucumbers,
Before disinfecting you with vitriol, cleansing you and
shellacking you with passion,
Before all of that,
We shall take a big antiseptic bath,
And we warn you
We are murderers.


The Collective’s First Manifesto
July 2006

TO THE ARTISTS
Before going down among you to rip off your naïve
doodles, your vain self portraits, your clichéd colour palette,
Before plundering your MTV imagination,
Before pilfering your paintings, abstract because you can’t
fucking paint, embezzling your anti-Bush caricature that you
think will stop the war,
Before committing daylight robbery of sketches you’re too
cack-handed to stick on a wall,
Before poaching the research based solely on your
nauseating off spring, your incontinent grandparents, your
impotent lover,
Before stealing your life’s work and showing it for
what it truly is,
Before all of that,
We shall hold a paralytic orgy of a brainstorm,
And we warn you,
We are plagiarists.


The Nice Maifesto February 2007

TO THE ARTISTS
Before falling down amongst you to honour your tenacious
strokes, your heartbreaking self-portraits, your awesome
patience,
Before emulating your sublime creations,
Before venerating your paintings, from vigorous abstraction
to figurative realism, echoing your earnest political comment,
Before submerging ourselves in your enlightening company
to hide our unbearable inadequacies,
Before lionizing your optimism in the face of melancholic
truths, your fearless leaps into the void, your perseverance
on the impossible original,
Before merely imitating your life’s work and showing
obeisance to your unyielding dedication,
Before all of that,
We shall plead for your humble forgiveness,
And we warn you,
We are plagiarists.