CLIP ART
IS
POLITICAL
2026 — Los Angeles, California
When every scene is surveilled, every movement is monetized, and attention is bought and sold, the generic image is more resonant than ever. A lightbulb, a closeup of a handshake, a figure climbing the ladder of success: these images carry no algorithmic signature.
Clip art isn’t kitsch or nostalgic. It’s a rejection of a world in which the image has lost its shared meaning. Technology has given us infinite novelty and personalization and zero commons. We lack a shared visual language.
Clip artists produced imagery with recognizable style and no fixed meaning. Their work invited interpretation, adaptation, and reuse. They helped the world to speak in pictures. The same image could serve multiple contexts: handed from neighbor to neighbor, pressed into newsletters, stapled to telephone poles, tucked inside union pamphlets and school announcements. Clip art belongs to everyone—whoever has the scissors or the lasso tool.
This is not a retreat to into the past. This is the recovery of a principle the past had the good sense to practice: that the tools of representation can be a shared language whose interpretations are open to all.
is Dead
Long Live
Clip Art
Hello and thank you for reading The Clip Art Manifesto. Clip Art is a new audio/video project (you can also just call it a band). Sometimes the name might look like this: Ⓒlip Ⓐrt. This website is a living document that will update over time.
Thank you to those who attended the Clip Art Megamix at Flux Festival 2026. Email your questions, comments, complaints, and compliments directly to me, Jona Bechtolt. To view my life in photographs, visit this hyperlink. To view my releases, performances, and projects with YACHT, visit this other hyperlink.
Stay tuned for the full-length album, Clip Art Vol I & Vol II, set for release later this year. If you're already interested in going deep, check out the album Read Me for the tracklist, lyrics, and credits.
The next Clip Art performance will take place July 31st - August 2nd, 2026 at FWB Fest in Idyllwild, CA. For booking inquiries, write Ryan Craven at TBA Agency.
If you have clip art books, pages, or any other ephemera that you would like to send to me, please do!
Wilshire Online
ATTN: Clip Art
6135 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles, CA, 90046
Frank Fruzyna for Dynamic Graphics