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What is Fluxus?
This question has been asked before, and I have answered it in this, The Fluxus Blog, before. But that was a long time ago, and the question, “What is Fluxus” continues to be asked. For readers looking for a simple answer, contemporary Fluxus artist, Allan Revich has summarized Fluxus into just four characteristic ideas: Four Fluxus Characteristics Fluxus is an attitude. It is not a movement or a style. Fluxus is Intermedia. Fluxus creators like to see what happens when different media intersect. They use everyday found objects, sounds, images, and texts to create new combinations of objects, sounds, images, and texts. Fluxus works are simple. Art is small, texts…
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Fluxus and Minimalism and Me
Roots of Fluxus vs. Roots of Minimalism 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,…
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Defeating the Demons of Decoration
This would look perfect above our sofa! It might be true that most of the visual art being purchased, is bought purely for its utility as wall decoration. It may also be true that a majority of visual artists are content creating an oeuvre of pretty pictures. But good art, real art, serious art, transcends decoration. The best art is analogous to the best literature—it makes us think. It causes us to question. It induces wonderment. Artists attempting to create work that is capable of defeating the demon of decor are faced with considerable challenges. Historically, even in non-Western, or ancient cultures, the most culturally important artists would have their…
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The Fluxlist: Lists, Links, Social Media
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) Twitter @The_Fluxlist The Fluxlist Blog on Blogspot On the Web @ the-fluxlist.com
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Fluxus in 2016: Is it Relevant?
Is Fluxus still relevant in 2016? Let me make it easy for you dear reader. The (short) answer to this question is an unequivocal, “YES!“ If you’re still reading, I’ll assume that you have some interest in knowing why Fluxus, a “movement” from the early 1960s remains relevant (and dare I say important?) in the early years of the twenty-first century. Let me answer this in three parts. What Fluxus was. What Fluxus is. Why Fluxus is still important. What Fluxus Was: This question has been answered many times, by many people, so I’ll provide an answer here, but won’t dwell upon it. Fluxus grew out of the art and…
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Defeating the Demons of Decoration
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Jackson Mac Low: Fluxus Poet
Jackson Mac Low (September 12, 1922 – December 8, 2004), an early affiliate of the original group of Fluxus artists that surrounded George Maciunas, held distinction as being the first “poet of Fluxus”. While many Fluxus artists incorporated (and incorporate) text and visual poetry into the work, Mac Low was the first whose primary creative output was based in poetics. He was one of the key progenitors of mid-century chance operations for artistic creation output. In a 2014 exhibition at MoMA Mac Low was featured in The Poetry of Silence: Jackson Mac Low’s Drawing-Asymmetry In an excerpt from the exhibition text, Jordan Carter writes, In 1960, one year prior to beginning the Drawing-Asymmetry series,…
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Forty Years of Fluxus, by Ken Friedman
Forty Years of Fluxus By Ken Friedman Publishing history: This article is published as: Friedman, Ken. 2002. “Cuarenta Anos de Fluxus.” Fluxus y Fluxfilms,1962-2002. Berta Sichel, editor, in collaboration with Peter Frank. Madrid: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, 41-83. Copyright © Ken Friedman 2002. All rights reserved This text may be quoted and printed freely with proper acknowledgement. ________________________________________ Forty Years of Fluxus By Ken Friedman 1.The Fluxus Idea, 1962-2002 1.1 The birth of Fluxus, more or less The fortieth anniversary of Fluxus celebrates the first organized Fluxus festival in Wiesbaden, Germany. While this is convenient for exhibitions and festivals, emphasizing a time and place obscures as much…
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La Monte Young: His Life and Influence
Artist and musician, La Monte Young, has been to avant garde music what Ray Johnson was to Mail Art. He was influenced by John Cage, but went on to create his own highly influential oeuvre. When he wrote Trio for Strings, he was still a starving artist eating mustard sandwiches to survive. According to Young [he] “bought the bread and stole the mustard,” On September 3, 2015 Young will present the original full-length version of Trio for Strings at Dia. He considers it to be a world premiere, as when it premiered 57 years ago he agreed to shorten it for presentation. A decision he regrets. Young isn’t interested in temporal popularity; he believes his music…
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Fluxus Digital Collection Launch
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE. PLEASE CIRCULATE WIDELY. Fluxus Digital Collection Launch April 7, 2015—We are pleased to announce the launch of The Fluxus Digital Collection. This online archive gathers an eclectic range of artworks by one of the most important movements of the twentieth century. Global in scope, Fluxus members moved between the USA, Europe, East Asia, and elsewhere. They worked across and between traditional media, opting for ephemeral materials, participatory approaches, and playful humor. The collection includes digital tools that make interactive objects and text-based works available to viewers—many of which have not been read, seen, or heard outside of select archives. With technical tools that include 3-D modeling, digital…
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What is Fluxus (by Mark Bloch, July 9, 2012)
Fluxus was an international group of thinkers, artists, composers, performers and designers that first networked themselves together in the late 1950s, then became a performance collective when they took their name in 1962, then a way of working with time and materials and eventually an art movement creating work in several dimensions and media that lasted from the early 60s through the late 70s and beyond on three continents, blazing the aesthetic trails that were to define the next half century of art history. They shattered old aesthetic boundaries and explored new ones, while grappling internally with their communal identity, under the guidance of their own conflicting, shifting, and morphing…
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Let’s talk about Fluxus…
Or, What I Learned That Fluxus Was/Is/Isn’t/Might be/Should be/Could be We could start with Dada. Some people have called Fluxus “neodada”. Some have called contemporary Fluxus neodada. Those people are wrong. So we won’t start with Dada. Let’s start instead with John Cage. John Cage was not a Fluxus artist, and he had nothing directly to do with the founding of Fluxus. But he had one really cool idea that made Fluxus (and most art of every kind after his idea) possible. Cage realized that music (he was a composer) was all just sound waves in air. It wasn’t flutes, or pianos, or violins, or treble clefs and bass clefs,…
