Belief

Works of ongoing aesthetic value
Works of aesthetic and historical rigor
Aesthetic arguments between artists
Cultural resistance
Hope

The Press believes artists have a moral obligation to create artifacts that are beautiful, meaningful, and fiercely accountable to history and geography: it means to serve both as model and rebuke. The Press is committed to publishing works of vertiginous aesthetic merit, unpublishable length, and pleasurable demands.

The Press resists basic market-driven standards of quality, morality, and political identity found in the tried and untrue sectors of mainstream publishing and the current apres-garde, and to this end, is perfectly happy to slit its own throat. The Press intends in the most premeditated fashion to champion the trinity of Beauty, Belief, and Bawdry.

To this end, Les Figues Press authors write an aesthetic essay or poetics articulating his or her intentions and the large why of what s/he thinks art ought do. Aesthetic essays from LFP authors include:

Danielle Adair: Haver

Stan Apps: On Unimportant Art

Nuala Archer: The Amazing Advent Kali & Cunt

Sissy Boyd: Translation

Amina Cain: i sew my prey

Jennifer Calkins: The Bullet and the Bird

Teresa Carmody: A Catechism of Aesthetics for a Time of Religious War

Allison Carter: Aesthetics Statement

Molly Corey: Aesthetic/Politic

Vincent Dachy: The Mist and The Slipper

Lisa Darms: 1/2 Earth 1/2 Ether

Ken Ehrlich: On Collaboration