Skip to content
Menu
Digital Salon Fluxus Blog
  • Digital Salon Home
  • Artwork
  • Publications
  • Fluxus Multiples
  • Allan Revich
  • Contact
Digital Salon Fluxus Blog
November 11, 2020March 31, 2021

What is Fluxus?

Tweet

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

  1. Fluxus is an attitude. It is not a movement or a style.
  2. 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.
  3. Fluxus works are simple. Art is small, texts are short, and performances are short.
  4. Fluxus is fun. Humour has always been an important element in Fluxus.

While these four principles are not absolute, they represent an excellent shorthand to understanding Fluxus.

For readers interested in learning more about the dual nature of Fluxus, please read on.

The answer to “What is Fluxus” has two parts:

Part One: Fluxus as an Idea

Fluxus cofounder, Dick Higgins saw Fluxus as an idea, a way of being in the world. It was more that a movement, and more than a group of specific artists. He elaborated this point of view very concisely in his short paper, “A Child’s History of Fluxus“.

Higgins explicitly rejected a notion that limited Fluxus to a specific group of people who came together at a specific time and place. Dick wrote, “Fluxus is not a moment in history, or an art movement. Fluxus is a way of doing things, a tradition, and a way of life and death.”

Ken Friedman, Forty Years of Fluxus (1998, 2002)

Ken Friedman expanded on Higgin’s ideas and described Fluxus as “laboratory” characterized by 12 ideas:

12 Ideas of Fluxus

  1. globalism,
  2. the unity of art and life,
  3. intermedia,
  4. experimentalism,
  5. chance,
  6. playfulness,
  7. simplicity,
  8. implicativeness,
  9. exemplativism,
  10. specificity,
  11. presence in time, and
  12. musicality

These 12 ideas are described fully in Ken Friedman’s article, Forty Years of Fluxus.

The artist and art historian, Owen Smith, has published extensively on the subject of Fluxus as an Attitude. His book Fluxus: History of an Attitude, is highly recommended.

Part Two: Fluxus as a Group of Artists

The Fluxus Movement began in the early 1960s, founded by George Maciunas and Dick Higgins, and built on ideas first articulated by artists like John Cage and La Monte Young, both of whom are primarily known as composers. There was significant influence from the Dada movement of the early 20th century, and from ideas circulating at Black Mountain College in the late 1950s.

A number of other contemporary events are credited as either anticipating Fluxus or as constituting proto-Fluxus events.[25] The most commonly cited include the series of Chambers Street loft concerts, in New York, curated by Yoko Ono and La Monte Young in 1961, featuring pieces by Yoko Ono, Jackson MacLow, Joseph Byrd, and Henry Flynt;[30] the month-long Yam festival held in upstate New York by George Brecht and Robert Watts in May 1963 with Ray Johnson and Allan Kaprow (the culmination of a year’s worth of Mail Art pieces);[25] and a series of concerts held in Mary Bauermeister‘s studio, Cologne, 1960–61, featuring Nam June Paik and John Cage among many others. It was at one of these events in 1960, during his Etude pour Piano, that Paik leapt into the audience and cut John Cage’s tie off, ran out of the concert hall, and then phoned the hall’s organisers to announce the piece had ended.[31] As one of the movement’s founders, Dick Higgins, stated:

Wikipedia entry for Fluxus (accessed Nov. 11, 2020

Fluxus started with the work, and then came together, applying the name Fluxus to work which already existed. It was as if it started in the middle of the situation, rather than at the beginning.[32][33]

Maciunas especially, believed that he was creating a movement that was club-like. He was famous for pronouncing which artists in his circle were either “in” or “out”. This has had some significant effects on the perceptions of Fluxus after his death. Fluxus cofounder Dick Higgins saw Fluxus somewhat differently. He (and many of his contemporaries) saw Fluxus as an Idea. An idea not bounded by dates in time or membership lists.

The artists active in Fluxus today share the idea of Fluxus as an Idea.

Tweet

Pages

  • Allan Revich
  • Artwork
  • Contact
  • Cookies and Privacy
  • Fluxus Multiples
  • Publications

Categories

  • Artists
  • Commentary
  • Event Notice
  • Fluxus
  • Fluxus History
  • Guest Article

Recent Posts

  • Ben Vautier asks, “What is Fluxus?”
  • In One Year and Out the Other
  • New Artist Statement
  • Make Your Own Fluxus (an event score)
  • Robert Filliou

Archives

  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • October 2022
  • February 2022
  • November 2021
  • March 2021
  • January 2021
  • November 2020
  • July 2020
  • January 2020
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • June 2019
  • April 2019
  • October 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • October 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • February 2017
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • September 2014
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • June 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • December 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • July 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • December 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • January 2009
  • September 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • February 2008
  • August 2007
  • July 2007
  • June 2007
  • April 2007
  • March 2007
  • February 2007
  • January 2007
  • December 2006
  • October 2006
  • September 2006
  • August 2006
  • July 2006
  • June 2006
  • May 2006
  • April 2006
  • March 2006
  • January 2006
  • June 2005
  • April 2005
©2023 Digital Salon Fluxus Blog | Powered by WordPress and Superb Themes!