The Second Diasporist Manifesto

by R.B. Kitaj

This book, a follow-up to Kitaj's influential "First Diasporist Manifesto" (1989), is a personal reflection on the Jewish Question in contemporary art as it is lived and painted and imagined by one of today's most innovative and controversial artists. In 615 distinct propositions that deliberately echo the Commandments of Jewish Law, Kitaj here channels his ideas for a new Diasporist art in a daring stream of consciousness. Including 41 images of the artist's work chosen by him to accompany the text, this beautifully crafted volume is a unique and fascinating look into an artist's unusual life and work. From "The Second Diasporist Manifesto" 'But I swore to become myself - the new Jewish painter of a skeptical Diasporist art, born in Modernism, which cleaves to my own uncanny Jewish life of study, painting, unthinkable thoughts and near death...I admit that my Manifesto-poem is very personal, as a poem can be. But one would have to also unpack the cultural secrets of a book on Islamic Art, or Chinese or Egyptian or African Art. My Jewish Art lives a more Modernist Secret life. The Jewish Diaspora is not the only one. It's just mine.'

160 pages, Hardcover

First published October 28, 2007

About the author

Ronald Brooks Kitaj (1932-2007)

Reviews

[Gerhard Schoeman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful book - "crazy as Blake," according to Kitaj's friend Frank Auerbach. I shall hold it as close as I hold the First Diasporist Manifesto.