Jackson Mac Low

Manifesto

To manifest: to be, visibly.
To make visible what was formerly invisible or otherwise to make sensible what was formerly not.
To present or make present, vocally, visibly, or otherwise, one's views, sentiments, objections, etc. in reference to a matter of public concern.
Manifest: a commercial document listing constituents of cargo or names of passengers on a plane, ship, or other vehicle.
A manifest of meanings.
To make evident or certain by showing or displaying.
Readily perceived by the senses, especially by sight.
Easily understood or recognized.
Obvious.
To become obvious.
To be, obviously.
To be, recognizably.
To become recognizable.
To emerge as a figure from a ground.
To become visible, or otherwise perceptible, as an agent.
To act.
To make interior states perceptible to others.
Manifesto: a public declaration of principles, intentions, views, or feelings.
A document in which is said explicitly what otherwise might have remained implicit in political, artistic, or other practice.
To present or make present.
To present for inspection what might not otherwise have been able to be inspected.
To make the implicit explicit.
To make the hidden unhidden.
To say what might not otherwise have been said.
Choose one or more of the following:
Every text is a manifesto.
Every (adjective) text is a manifesto.
Every text worth reading is a manifesto.

18 June 1983
New York

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Unmanifest

What the maker of a manifesto does not comprehend or acknowledge is the basic unmanifestness from which and within which each manifestation take place. It is this neglect or ignorance that calls forth repugnance when a manifesto is proclaimed or published, especially one regarding art. As if what comes to being in and as the work of art could ever be totally manifest or even manifest at all without its abiding steadfastly in the unmanifest! A work of art is a manifesto only insofar as it is its own antimanifesto.

21 June 1983
New York