DAN FRIEDMAN’S RADICAL MODERNIST AGENDA (1994)

We think Dan Friedman (1945–1995) put it in words better than we could have ever done. So we would rather cosign his 1994 Radical Modernist Agenda:

• Live and work with passion and responsibility; have a sense of humor and fantasy.
• Try to express personal, spiritual, and domestic values even if our culture continues to be dominated by corporate, marketing, and institutional values.
• Choose to remain progressive; don’t be regressive. Find comfort in the past only if it expands insight into the future and not just for the sake of nostalgia.
• Embrace the richness of all cultures; be inclusive instead of exclusive.
• Think of your work as a significant element in the context of a more important, transcendental purpose.
• Use your work to become advocates of projects for the public good.
• Attempt to become a cultural provocateur; be a leader rather than a follower.
• Engage in self-restraint; accept the challenge of working with reduced expectations and diminished resources.
• Avoid getting stuck in corners, such as being a servant to increasing overhead careerism, or narrow points of view.
• Bridge the boundaries that separate us from other creative professions and unexpected possibilities.
• Use the new technologies, but don’t be seduced into thinking that they provide answers to fundamental questions.
• Be radical.