REFUSED MANIFESTOS

The art produced by Refused is a weapon in the service of the struggle and an inseparable part of it. Their rightful place is in the centers of conflict, that is to say, in the streets and on the stereos in the factories. To use them for decorative purposes, to display them in bourgeois places of culture or to consider them as objects of aesthetic interest is to impair both their function and their affect. This is why Refused has always refused to compromise their artistic outlet. Even to keep them as historical evidence of a certain stage in the struggle is a betrayal, for the struggle itself is of such primary importance that the position of an “outside” observer is a fiction which inevitably plays into hands of the ruling class. That is why these works should not be taken as the final outcome of an experience, but as an inducement for finding, through contact with the masses, new levels of action, both on the cultural and the political plane.