100 Artists' Manifestos: From the Futurists to the Stuckists

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Penguin Modern Classics publishes 100 Artists' Manifestos: From the Futurists to the Stuckists edited by Alex Danchev. This includes three Stuckist manifestos.

Listen to feature on ABC Radio National Australia (22.5.11).
Presented by Fiona Croall. Includes interview with Alex Danchev, who (just over halfway through the programme) mentions the humour of The Other Muswell Hill Stuckists and says, "The Stuckists are also in the vein of wit, in the vein of being against something."

Terry Eagleton in The Times Literary Supplement (23.3.11):
Alex Danchev’s book also reprints the manifesto of the anti-Brit Art Stuckists, which contains the subversive suggestion that “Artists who don’t paint aren’t artists”. Today, rejecting the easel is as conventional as the iambic pentameter

Peter Murray in the Irish Examiner (26.2.11):
The best of the more recent manifestos are marked by an artistic and poetic vision, although some, unfortunately, can only be described as peevish utterances of suburban intellectuals. A recent example, issued in 2009 by "the Other Muswell Hill Stuckists", illustrates the redundancy of the form. Published on the centenary of Marinetti’s manisfesto, the activists of Muswell Hill manage little more than a tired denounciation of the Groucho Club, the Turner Prize and Tracey Emin. At least their manifesto is short. Less witty, and much too long, is the 2008 Manifesto Towards a New Humanism in Architecture...

Jackie Wullschlager in the Financial Times (14.2.11):
Danchev argues that “Marinetti’s antics resonate throughout the century”, but he kills his case by selecting Billy Childish and Charles Thomson of the reactionary Stuckists – some of the worst painters and silliest theorists who ever lived – to conclude his anthology. The Stuckist mission against contemporary art is not only vapid – it actually contradicts the very spirit of the manifesto, which is forward-looking and rooted in a belief that art is nothing if not conceptual.

Alex Danchev in The Independent (11.2.11):
One hundred years to the day after the founding manifesto of Futurism was splashed across the front page of Le Figaro, The Founding Manifesto and Rules of The Other Muswell Hill Stuckists was published online. As their moniker might suggest, The Other Muswell Hill Stuckists have a sense of humour. They believe in painting, as opposed to conceptual art. "Running is not art. Scrunching up a sheet of paper into a ball is not art. Sticking blu-tack on the wall is not art. People who think it is need to get out more." If Damien Hirst's dead sheep is truly the Stuckist bête noire, Tracey Emin's unmade bed runs it a close second. The Stuckists mobilised against the Young British Artists ("YBA means you'll believe anything"), the Turner Prize, and the Tate. As a body, or a cause, they may be irremediably marginal, not to say parochial, yet from time to time they have been surprisingly effective. Their very existence is a tonic. Wyndham Lewis was once said to be a kind of British (or English) rearguard action against the Futurist incursion - the arrière-garde against the avant-garde. The Stuckists seem to show that there is space for an English arrière-garde after all.

Stuckist manifesto and paintings on Guardian video (3.2.11) - end of slide show.

BBC Radio 4 Start the Week (31.1.11). Listen here.
10.33 - 23.02 artists manifestos discussed.
16.12 - 21.26 Stuckists discussed. Excerpts:
Andrew Marr: … I can see Susan Hiller shaking her head in absolute horror at the Stuckists ... It was pro-traditional art, anti-conceptual art … And you probably it's fair to say, Susan Hiller, have not been absolutely a total enthusiast for the Stuckists.
Susan Hiller: No. I think their manifesto is an absolutely honest scream of pain and anger …
Andrew Marr: Before we leave them, I'm very nervously going to stick up for some bits of the Stuckist manifesto here, because we were talking about what went wrong perhaps in the art and cultured world of the last 20 or 30 years, and they do say in this, "Britart, in being sponsored by the Saatchis, mainstream conservatism and the Labour government, makes a mockery of its claim to be subversive or avant-garde." There's a little bit of a point there, isn't there?
Neville Brody: Well, there's not only that, but the last point of the Stuckists also says that in design education and art education, everyone should be allowed to go, regardless of their financial background. So, yeh, I think I'm probably a Stuckist at heart.

New Statesman (27.1.11). Alex Danchev writes:
The latter-day stuckists add a pinch of history and a sense of humour - The Founding, Manifesto and Rules of the Other Muswell Hill Stuckists was issued on 20 February 2009. Blast novelty. Bless authenticity. Long live the cup of tea!

The Observer (23.1.11), The New Review, p4. William Skidelsky selects four highlights, including The Founding, Manifesto and Rules of The Other Muswell Hill Stuckists.

Scotland on Sunday (16.1.11) mentions the "wearisome" Stuckists and praises The Other Muswell Hill Stuckists manifesto definition of YBA - "You'll Believe Anything"