First Diasporist Manifesto, by RB Kitaj

international | arts and media | other press

Tuesday February 05, 2008 12:24

by C Murray

This is an Obit.

Ronald Brooke Kitaj, Painter and Writer born in Cleveland 1932- died 2007.

RB Kitaj- Diasporist Artist and Magician.

He wrote in 1989 a book which was entitled 'The First Diasporist Manifesto', it was sold
along with catalogues that accompanied his Retrospective at the Tate Gallery. A further
book entitled :- The Second Diasporist Manifesto' was later published by Yale.

RB Kitaj, 'The Murder of Rosa Luxemburg'

Kitaj tried to put into words his experience of being a post-holocaust Jew, he failed to
find the word magic to describe the experience of his abodelessness. He described
himself as an American, a yearning Jew and an Artist -School of London.

The Manifesto is beyond humble and unlike his painting he never quite finds the
words to describe his feeling of exile.

"Nationalism seems awful; it's track record stinks, but patriotism doesn't seem
half bad. ------------On the other hand, if people want their homelands, why not?
Partitioned homelands seem better to me than killing each other. My own homeland,
America , and my little one , England, offer such strong appearances of peace
and freedom that the really odd and peaceful practice of painting spins out my own
Diasporic days and years until I can't sense any other way to go.'

The Manifesto is one chapter long in the body of the book, followed by chapters
on :-

How I Came to make my Diasporist pictures.(Untimely Thoughts)
Diasporist Citations.
Guernica.
His New Freedom.
Commonality.
Golden Rule.
After 1945.
The Romantic Jew (ancestral Houses).
Diasporist tradition.
The Almond Tree.
Error.

He discusses Einstein, Gombrich, Roth and Primo Levi , amongst others.

Anyone can access Kitaj art by using the search engines, but it is far better to try and
attend an exhibition and examine the work of the artist.

"Diasporist Painting, which I just made up, is enacted under peculiar historical
and personal freedoms, stresses, dislocation, rupture and momentum'.