Fluxus
Text about Eric Andersen, Translated by Mary Graham
Profile
Fluxus (from "to flow") is an art movement noted for the
blending of different artistic disciplines, primarily visual art but also music
and literature. Fluxus was founded in 1962 by George Maciunas (1931-78), an American artist who had moved to
Germany to escape his creditors. Besides America and Europe, Fluxus also
took root in Japan.
Among its members were Joseph Beuys,
John Cage, and Yves Klein, who explored media ranging from performance art to poetry to
experimental music. They took the stance of opposition to the ideas of tradition
and professionalism in the arts of their time, the Fluxus group shifted the
emphasis from what an artist makes to the artist's personality, actions, and
opinions. Throughout the 1960s and '70s (their most active period) they staged
"action" events, engaged in politics and public speaking, and
produced sculptural works featuring unconventional materials. Their
radically untraditional works included, for example, the video art of Nam June
Paik and the performance art of Beuys. The often playful style of Fluxus artists led to them being
considered by some little more than a group of pranksters in their early years.
Fluxus has also been compared to Dada and is seen as the starting point of mail
art.
Most notorious are the Fluxus performance pieces or
"happenings". These pieces were meant to blur the lines between
performer and audience, performance and reality. --http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluxus
George Maciunas
I
remember visiting George with my dad and being flabbergasted by his projects.
Some of my favorites were the suicide
kits and feces kits that he sold. The suicide kit
consisted of small compartmentalized clear plastic
boxes that contained the necessary tools to do yourself in. This kit did not
include instructions so you had to get creative with some of the objects. One
was a fish hook on a string that George pointed out.
The hook would be swallowed then by pulling up the on string you would get to
your maker. --Sulaitis,1997 http://www.slonet.org/~tsulaiti/fluxus.html
Ben Vautier’s A Flux Suicide Kit
On view is Ben Vautier’s A Flux
Suicide Kit which consists of a plastic box containing
a shard of glass, a razor, a fishing hook, matches, an electrical plug, a pin,
and a mysterious ball bearing. The piece includes graphic design by Maciunas in the form of an insert depicting a man’s head with explicative arrows
marking pressure points like an acupuncturist’s chart. A Flux Suicide Kit
alludes to the Vincent Van Gogh suicide and romantic
angst-ridden artist myth. It subverts our expectation innocuousness and elicits
a response that is both troubling and humorous (Vautier’s Lilliputian noose would only hang a field
mouse). (...) --http://nyartsmagazine.com/60/openings.htm
Fluxus
Fluxus - An art movement begun in
1961/1962, which flourished throughout the 1960s, and into the 1970s.
Characterized by a strongly Dadaist attitude, Fluxus promoted artistic
experimentation mixed with social and political activism, an often celebrated
anarchistic change. Although Germany was its principal location, Fluxus was an
international avant-garde movement active in major Dutch, English, French, Swedish, and American
cities. Its participants were a divergent group of individualists whose most
common theme was their delight in spontaneity and humour. Fluxus members
avoided any limiting art theories, and spurned pure aesthetic objectives,
producing such mixed-media works as found poems, mail art, silent orchestras,
and collages of such readily available materials as scavanged
posters, newspapers, and other ephemera. Their activities resulted in many
events or situations, often called "Actions" -- works challenging
definitions of art as focused on objects -- performances, guerrilla or street
theatre, concerts of electronic music -- many of them similar to what in
America were known as Happenings.
Fluxists
Fluxists include Joseph Beuys, George Brecht (German, 1926-), John Cage
(American, 1912-1992), Robert Filliou (French,
1926-1987), Henry Flynt (American, 1940-),
Joseph Beuys
The following is excerpted from the book Energy Plan for the Western
Man, pgs. 128-9. It concludes a 1982 interview.
The original Fluxus concerts were
organized by people whose interest was in sound rather than painting or
sculpture. Hence the link with John Cage,
There were as many different ideologies and interpretations of Fluxus as
there were people, and the chance to work with people of different opinions was
one of the most challenging aspects. Anything could be included, from the tearing
up of a piece of paper to the formulation of ideas for the transformation of
society.
My first concert (apart from Beethoven at school and Satie
at the opening of my exhibition in Kleve in 1960) was
at the Galerie Parnass in Wuppertal in 1963. Dressed like a regular pianist in dark
grey flannel, black tie and no hat, I played the piano all over- not just the
keys- with many pairs of old shoes until it disintegrated. My intention was
neither destructive nor nihilistic. "Heal like with like"- similia similibus curantur- in the homeopathic sense. The main intention was
to indicate a new beginning, an enlarged understanding of every traditional
form of art, or simply a revolutionary act.
This was my first public Fluxus appearance. I participated in compositions
by George Maciunas, Alison Knowles, Addi Koepke and Dick Higgins and
presented two of my own works. On the first night I performed a "Concert
for Two Musicians". It lasted for perhaps twenty seconds. I dashed forward
in the gap between two performances, wound up a clockwork toy, two drummers, on
the piano, and let them play until the clockwork ran down. That was the end.
The Fluxus people felt that this short action was my breakthrough, while the
event of the second evening was perhaps too heavy, complicated and
anthropological for them. Yet the "Siberian Symphony, section 1"
contained the essence of all my future activities and was, I felt, a wider
understanding of what Fluxus could be.
[The Fluxus artists] held a mirror up to people without indicating how
to change things. This is not to belittle what they did achieve in the way of
indicating connections in life and how art could develop. --Joseph Beuys
Krautrock
In the late '60s, there was a concerted attempt to create a
distinctively German popular music. Liberated by the influence of Fluxus
(LaMonte Young and Tony Conrad were frequent visitors
to Germany during this period) and Anglo-American psychedelia,
groups like Can and Amon Dόόl began to sing in German --the first step in countering pop's
Anglo-American centrism. - Jon Savage [...]
Yoko Ono [...]
When John Lennon and Fluxus artist Yoko
Ono made 'happenings' together in the late 1960’s their bed-in for
peace, for example: the
love-affair between art and rock began to flourish.
Music
[...] the musical
portion led by composers and musicians such as Charlotte Moorman, Philip Corner,
Yoko Ono and Daniel Goode, who went even further in rejecting notions of
musical hierarchy: In considering all sound to be beautiful, they went so far
on their agenda as to organize a remarkable series of concerts where even
sensitive non-musicians could take part as performers. --Rhys
Chatham
Eric Andersen
What is ......? By Eric Andersen, Translated by
Mary Graham
Fluxus is probably the phenomenon in the art world of the 20th century
that historians and other scholars have the most difficulty grasping. The
reasons range from a simple lack of will to downright laziness. Although the
contribution to the debate by many artists may have been by way of droll
misleading comments, we have never shirked from clarifying the issue, if and
when interest was shown. For the most part, though, historians suppose that
living artists are just out to make trouble. Most art historians and
mainstreams curators continuously try to persuade the public that Fluxus was a
movement, albeit an art movement, an all-out American affair. When these
frenzied grumblings are connected to large economic interests one can into the
bargain often find such a peculiar designation as Fluxism.
But this is pure rubbish. Fluxus emerged almost as a creation to the sad truth
that art for more than two hundred years found its classification within 'isms'
and was resigned to being reduced to stereotyped personal expression. Fluxus
stood in complete contrast to this world and became at least two incompatible
entities. It was one thing in Europe in the years 1962 and 1963 and later
something entirely different in the USA, at the time George Maciunas,
without any tremendous success, attempted to transform the lot into one form
and one strategy. The term Fluxus was first used in Europe and it was also here
that the first Fluxus Festivals were held, the first venue was Wiesbaden and
then Copenhagen, Düsseldorf, Paris, Amsterdam and many other places during 1962
and 1963.A quite unique new departure had taken place simultaneously in Europe,
the USA and Japan in the late Fifties and early Sixties. A
completely different understanding of art, which a few years later would be
dubbed Inter Media by artist and scholar Dick Higgins.
While in the USA and Japan this new view of art only penetrated in mega
centres like New York, the West Coast, Tokyo and Osaka, in Europe around 1960
it had spread largely to all major cities. Piero Manzoni was working in Milan and later Chiari in
Florence and Marchetti in Milan. In Madrid and
Barcelona Juan Hidalgo, Esther Ferrer and Charles
Santos. In Paris and Nice Yves Klein, Daniel Spoerri,
Robert Filliou, Ben Vautier
and Nouveaux Realistes. In Cologne Tomas Schmit, Ben Patterson, Nam June Paik and Wolf Vostell, Emmett Williams in Darmstadt and Zero in
Düsseldorf. Willem de
Ridder and Wim Schippers
in Amsterdam, Arthur Køpcke and myself in Copenhagen, and Bengt af Klintberg and Pistolteatren in Stockholm. The list goes
on and on. Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union presented an entire chapter onto
itself, which I choose not to dwell on here.
We all found ourselves in marginalised positions but were steadily and
calmly creating the necessary platform for our work, which had already from a
hesitant start pointed in all possible and totally different directions. George
Maciunas's role in Europe was to assemble us at the
first festivals, to which he together with Alison Knowles and Dick Higgins
brought along a succession of new scores and performance directions from
It would be hard to find greater differences of expression, temperament,
position and opinion than among these artists. There was one thing common to
most, but not all: an understanding of art as Inter Media. The most common
misconception being floated is that Inter Media was born following the
development of 486 processors in the Eighties and that the phenomenon is
unthinkable without a definite medium: a computer with a very fast processor.
Inter Media, however, does not have any definite form or scale, or attach itself to particular circumstances. As the term implies it
does, on the other hand, find a place between other media. This view of art was
first conceived in the period 1958-62 and has constantly changed form ever
since. It cannot by definition be categorised as a thing, only as methods.
Inter Media rejects art and communication as production. Instead, it seeks by
means of constant innovation to conduct fundamental research in human
articulation. The oeuvre here is not a demarcated unit. The work is open and
undergoing constant change, because it includes the spectator. You can but
participate in such a work, also by means of mere reflection.
It is quite telling that the terminology we used in the late Fifties and
early Sixties has now been appropriated by the media world. The main terms at
that time were: Globalism, Simultaneity, Network
Structures, Events, Occurrences and Interaction. This is what brought us
together and this is almost the opposite of what George Maciunas
tried to move Fluxus towards when he returned to New York. For him Fluxus was
an international avant-garde, which should fight cultural imperialism, and
change society and its cultural institutions. In New York from 1964 and up
through the Seventies he tried to style Fluxus. The rest of us remained quite
unperturbed. He was well regarded as a very capable organiser and graphic
designer but publishing work in the way he did was quite different from our
manners.
It is interesting to note that no art historian has been fit to point
out that by far the majority of the artists who participated in the Fluxus
festivals of 1962 and 1963 could only on very rare occasions work with George Maciunas, after he established his headquarters in New
York. Rather, George Maciunas, must be remembered as
the amazing initiator he was. Both when the network was being established in
1962 and Soho in New York was being developed via artist cooperatives. Myths
about Fluxus abound then as now. They went to such extremes in the Seventies
that the art reviewer on one of Copenhagen's main dailies Politiken
solemnly declared that Fluxus was an art movement founded by Joseph Beuys. Beuys' attachment to the
network was always periphery, although his work had been immensely influenced
by a Fluxus visit to Düsseldorf in 1963.
Another rather amusing notion is that Fluxus is a type of neo-Dada
anti-art movement with John Cage as father and Marcel Duchamp
as grandfather. We were, of course, very fond of them both, both as people and
artists, but it can never be said that either was the most important
prerequisite for Inter Media. We were just as enthralled by Manzoni,
Yves Klein, Man Ray, Marinetti, Malevich,
Buñuel and many, many more. And besides Ben Vautier's lush coquettishness not much of the anti-art label
can be attributed to anyone. -- Eric Andersen, Translated by Mary Graham
Link
1. http://www.artnotart.com/fluxus/
CDs
1.
SYR
4: Goodbye 20th Century - Sonic Youth [2 CD, Amazon US]
Wildly influential four-piece Sonic Youth have self-released their version of a
tribute to the 20th century: two discs of noisy interpretations of modern,
experimental classical scores. The group has chosen composers whose works leave
a great amount of innovation open to the performer. This chance-embracing
approach--typified and in some senses originated by John Cage--is one of the crucial
turning points of "new" music. What's great about this CD is that it
demonstrates the freewheeling, decidedly unserious spirit behind this music,
essentially combining the legacies of punk rock and out-sound.
In addition to three late works by the chance-loving Cage, there are pieces by
current Merce Cunningham collaborator Takehisa Kosugi, minimalist giant
Steve Reich, "deep-listening" drone lover Pauline Oliveros,
and Fluxus founder George Maciunas. Longtime collaborator Wharton Tiers, the young everything-ist Jim O'Rourke, and even some of the composers themselves
join in on these exercises. The result is messy, fun, and anarchic, with
occasional revelations (notably James Tenney's
"Having Never Written a Note for Percussion"). It's not a disc to play
all the time, but it is a challenging, enthused record that ideally will point
listeners toward some of the most vital music of the last half of the last
decade of the second millennium. --Mike McGonigal [...]
Books
1.
Fluxus
- Thomas Kellein [1 book, Amazon US]
This magazine-sized volume on the nature of the group Fluxus, termed a "catalog," contains two essays by recognized experts
and 189 selected works illustrating 145 international neo-Dada intermedia objects, boxes, editions, artistic happenings,
and musical performances orchestrated by Fluxus's
founding father, George Maciunas. From his 1961
founding of the group until his death in 1978, Maciunas
conceived of this variable international association as a drastic alternative
to crass, materialistic "high art" and the fame afforded egocentric
artists. Everybody was declared his or her own artist, and works were developed
and disseminated through exhibitions, publications, mass-produced objects,
"products," paper or boxed editions of cheap Fluxus items, photos, and
films. Ironically, perhaps, many widely recognized artists did emerge from
Fluxus (e.g., Yoko Ono, John Lennon, Nam June Paik), but none could match the
"complex genius" of organizer Maciunas, who
was "driven by a utopian vision of a new art and a new society."
Recommended for larger contemporary art collections, especially for the
bibliography.--From Library Journal Copyright 1995 Cahners Business Information, Inc