Fluxfest 2020 is happening in Los Angeles, California from Friday March 6th through Sunday March 8th. Come to party. Come to learn. Come to participate.
Deadline February 15 2020, maximum size 8.5”” x 5.5”, 5241 Franklin Circle, Westminster, CA, 92683, USA.
No jury. No returns. All art will be shown. Vision2020Mail.com
From Lanny Quarles introduction to John’s most recent collection, SESOS EXTREMOS
SESOS EXTREMOS by John M. Bennett
After having read John M. Bennett’s poetry almost daily for 20 plus years, you would think I would have something very definite to say about it, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned from reading it all these years, is that things can change in an instant. At first you think some of the pieces you’ve been reading are hardcore concrete poetry, poetry of and maybe to the physicality of words, of expression, the mechanicality or instrumentality of thought, but then that year, you happen to meet or watch a performance by John and you’ve got the book in your hand, and suddenly you realize that a certain percentage of the poems, or even of any given poem, might suddenly become a very succinct notation for performance, an agile, well oiled vocal performance where some strange fog is playing the ‘john-horn’ or its fog suit avatar. In short, that the poem was made as such for a specific purpose (in one sense), but also that it is still concrete poetry, or it’s concrete sound poetry mapped to a visualization, and its functionalization as such is also visually important because it realizes a unique cultural production which is both solipsistic and immensely social and referential.
There are the collaborations, the works inspired by travel and friendships, poems in Spanish and French, and an engagement with the entireties of several avant-garde traditions and anti-traditions. There are hacks, riffings, homages, fever dreams, and obsessions galore! Like an oozing tarantula of snapping human jawbones carved from Olmec jade, or the Zapotec lightning amoeba Cocijo, the poetry of Dr. Bennett works its way into the crannies of your soft green brain, it sticks on your neck like a stain inspecting the muddy blowhole you call a mind. It’s literary peyote, both sacred and profane, but also scared because it’s making propane in the cave and the only light there is from an illuminated turtle language (with fire legs in its shirt) and there’s some gelatin left over which is already living in a bowl on your mantle and it has its own flag, the stone hand, ALTO! who knows how it got there, John may have picked it up on his shoe in the jungles of Mexico riding with the revolutionaries until they got lost, or found.
In short, John M. Bennett is a national treasure and an international man of mystery. Is he a mild-mannered librarian or a fluxist master? Is he camping in a hole full of beans? Possibly. Whatever it is he’s doing, he’s doing it just fine and will probably continue to do it, no matter what we think.
– Lanny Quarles 2018
Fluxus and Minimalism emerged at about the same time, and in reaction to the same tendencies in the art world. Both sensibilities evolved partly as a reaction against the post war (WWII) dogma of Abstract Expressionism. More importantly, they were both artistic revolutions against the art establishment. But there was an important difference that cannot be ignored. Whereas Fluxus had its roots in the anti-art aesthetic of Dada, Minimalism had its roots in the same milieu as the art world that it rebelled against. Inevitably, Minimalism became subsumed into that art world. Fluxus remains to this day as a small but important bastion, standing against the tyranny of artistic orthodoxy.
There remains a core commonality in Fluxus and Minimalism, despite their differences. Both Fluxus and minimalism are meant to be accessible. Both rejected a prevailing aesthetic that was being imposed by critics, historians, academics, and a ruthlessly mercenary cabal of collectors and art dealers. Both stood out as artist-centred, and artist organized. And even though the “art stars” of Minimalism moved into the realm of art dealers and collector/market driven commercialism, the minimalist (deliberately not capitalized “m”) aesthetic and life-orientation remains accessible to any artist who is drawn to it.
The two works above are some of my most recent pieces, in which I’ve attempted to merge the anti-art ethos of Fluxus with the minimal aesthetic of Minimalism. I’m not sure if I’ve succeeded with my new series of works on paper, but my goal is to hang on to the minimalist aesthetic and my inherent Fluxus sensibilities.
And of course, I can never really leave the Fluxus community and the “fluxiest” aspects of Fluxus, in which Intermedia supersedes any single medium.
Allan Revich (me), throwing a pebble into each corner of the universe. Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 2010
Fluxus and Minimalism emerged at about the same time, and in reaction to the same tendencies in the art world. Both sensibilities evolved partly as a reaction against the prevailing orthodoxy of the gallery/collector oriented art world.
This article is not about the 21st century minimalist lifestyle.
Hey kids! Get your gang together and have your very own Instant Fluxfest!
Just download the incredible Fluxus Performance Workbook and get busy performing the scores that have entertained and enlightened generations of Fluxus enthusiasts round the world.
The Fluxus Performance Workbook. Get yours today!
The Fluxlist in 2018 is as busy as it ever has been since its founding in 1996 by Fluxus co-founder Dick Higgins and friends. Some of whom (like Allen Bukoff) remain active on the list to this day.
Where will you find The Fluxlist today?
Facebook Group
(Most of the interactivity for which the intermedia group is famous happens here)
Yahoo Mail Group
(The email list continuation of the original 1996 listserv)
John M. Bennett has been (and continues to be) a prolific author and publisher of avant garde poetry and experimental writing. He is an active and inspirational member of the contemporary Fluxus community, and along with his wife, Cathy Mehrle Bennett, is also an active participant in the international network of mail artists.
Since 1974, Luna Bisonte Prods has published a wide variety of experimental, avant-garde, audio, and visual literature in a wide variety of formats by artists from all over the world. Among the authors and artists published are such major and emerging figures as Ivan Argüelles, Sheila E. Murphy, Jim Leftwich, Andrew Topel, Carlos M. Luis, Scott Helmes, Jake Berry, John M. Bennett, Susan Smith Nash, Al Ackerman, Bob Heman, Richard Kostelanetz, Charles Henri Ford, Dick Higgins, Robin Crozier, Peter Ganick, and many others.
LBP books are collected in major libraries and institutions, including The Museum of Modern Art, The Sackner Archive, Princeton University, SUNY Buffalo, The University of Wisconsin, Brown University, New York Public Library, Washington University, Ohio University, The Ohio State University, and many others.
Thursday, May 25. Opening reception, connections… Don E Boyd and art networking. 4 to 7 PM, Joan Flasch artist book library, school of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Dinner to follow, at Italian Village.
Friday, May 26th.
Meet at 9 AM at Patisserie Toni for breakfast, followed by a visit to concrete happenings, the Wolf Vostell show at University of Chicago. Bring flyers, postcards, handouts … let them know we were there !
At 4:30 pm we regroup at the MCA plaza for Flux/Resist. A guerilla art parade with street performances which joins the larger public protests at trump tower. Bring signs, banners, handouts, ask others to send signs to carry …
8pm New York Correspondance school of Chicago Yearly meeting and dinner.
The berghoff restaurant.
Saturday May 26th
10am breakfast meet up at Patisserie Toni ,
12-12:30 arrive at UNUM Gallery .
Performance from 1-4? PM .
Dinner to follow at FEED.
End the evening with the Nightcap Party at Schwalbe House. Wear your favorite nightcap, bring your Ukeleles.
Sunday May 27th
12:00 -5pm ?
Fluxuspotluck
Food and performances at
6018 North Gallery
George Maciunas (1931–1978) was a co-founder, and the self-appointed leader of Fluxus, an international community of artists, which was especially active in the United States, Japan, and Europe during the 1960s and 1970s. Today, the Fluxus network continues to thrive in the traditions established all those years ago by Maciuanas and his contemporaries.
George Maciunas, “Fluxshop Stationery (recto)” (nd), offset, printed in black, 13 3/4 x 6 3/4 inches (The Gilbert and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection Archives, The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York)
Manhattan-based artist and filmmaker Jeffrey Perkins, who met Maciunas several times and has long been associated with many of Fluxus’s key figures, has been gathering research material and shooting interviews with surviving Fluxus luminaries for George, a documentary film he is producing that will chronicle the life and achievements of the avant-garde group’s legendary leader.
Full article about the project is available on HyperAllergic.com
“George,” the Maciunas Film: An Emerging Portrait of an Influential Enigma
Historically many artists working in different media have related their work to Fluxus. Some of these artists belonged to a group surrounding the Lithuanian-American artist, George Maciunas, and the American artist, Dick Higgins. After the death of Maciunas, Higgins continued to promote Fluxus, eventually attracting a new generation of artists to the (non) movement, through the co-founding of an Internet mailing list—the Fluxlist. This new group of artists has continued the artistic practice of the first generation, while working towards maintaining the relevance of all generations, into the 21st century.
So what is Fluxus, and how can you know it when you see it?
Event scores are similar to short musical scores or theatrical setting descriptions. Some are designed to be performed, and some are written to be read and imagined without ever actually being performed. Of those that are written to be performed, some may be designed to be performed only once and recorded (through written, photo, or video) documentation, while others are written so that they can be performed repeatedly. Associated artists who have made extensive use of event scores in their work include Yoko Ono and George Brecht. The musical compositions of John Cage and the “Happenings” of Allan Kaprow are also closely related to Fluxus event scores.
Fluxkits, also sometimes call Fluxboxes, are smallish (usually no larger than a shoe box or briefcase) objects, that are collections of other objects that hold meaning to the artist, and can be interacted with by the audience. Fluxkits have been produced as multiples in editions, and as unique, one-of-a-kind objects. Interactivity can consist of examination of the contents, rearrangement of the objects, or games in which the rules often resemble event scores. Artists who have received attention in the art-oriented mass media for their fluxkits and fluxboxes include George Maciunas (who coined the word “Fluxus”), Ay-O, and George Brecht. The first Fluxkits probably resulted from fresh interpretations of the work of dada artist, Marcel Duchamp, and have continued to influence present day Fluxus and mail artists.
A third indicator of relatedness is the concept of “Intermedia”. The important Fluxus artist, Dick Higgins, described Intermedia as a myriad of emerging genres that spilled across the boundaries of traditional media. In the intersections between the arts, mixed-media forms coalesced: Happenings, performance art, kinetic sculpture, and electronic theater (Higgins). Higgins suggests that Fluxus artists explore the territory that lies between art media and life media. The difficulty in using Intermedia as a determinant to identifying a particular artists or artwork as Fluxus is that it is not easy to identify what kind of objects exist in “the territory between art media and life media”. However, performance art, video art, installation art, mail art, and time-based artworks are closely related even if not identified as such by either the artist or art critics.
It is safe to say that any work that closely resembles an Event Score or a Fluxkit/Fluxbox, is either Fluxus, or is closely related. It can also be argued that the combination of artistic intent (the artist states that the work is “Fluxus”) with an intermedia presentation, is Fluxus.
And while I am aware of artists that believe that their work is Fluxus because they say it is, that claim, without other evidence, should be considered spurious.
