In this chapter we learn that Fluxus is actually dead. We will also learn that Fluxus is alive and well and living in… everywhere.
I don’t think many Living Fluxus artists really believe that they (we) are part of a magical posthumous George Maciunas Fluxus Group. From what I have heard and read, George was fond of including and excluding people in “his” Fluxus as he saw fit… so who knows what he would have done with us? Maybe he would have loved us, and maybe he would have decided that we were not worth caring about. I believe that many artists, writers, historians, etc. have worked around this issue by accepting the two-part or three-part (Part 1 = GM; Part 2 = Worked with GM and kept working; Part 3 = Working today within the Fluxus meme) idea that I proposed in the first note I posted. It is an attempt to be respectful of the Fluxus One era, and of George Maciunas, who was unarguably the keystone to that era — while acknowledging (what to me is an equally inarguable reality) that Fluxus continued on/continues on unabated after he died.
The label “Fluxus” is the label that works. It is descriptive, and I think it is accurate. Today’s Fluxus work represents a continuation of the work that began in the 60s (the 50s if you include the pre-fluxus era of John Cage and Black Mountain College alumni).The passing of George Maciunas represents the end of a single chapter – not the end of the book. It was a really important chapter. The whole bool depends on it… but still, it was only one chapter.