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Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finished product. Fluxus is known for experimental contributions to different artistic media and disciplines and for generating new art forms. These art forms include
intermedia Intermedia is an art theory term coined in the mid-1960s by Fluxus artist Dick Higgins to describe various interdisciplinarity art activities that occur between genres, beginning in the 1960s. It was also used by John Brockman to refer to works ...
, a term coined by Fluxus artist
Dick Higgins Dick Higgins (15 March 1938 – 25 October 1998) was an American artist, composer, art theorist, poet, publisher, printmaker, and a co-founder of the Fluxus international artistic movement (and community). Inspired by John Cage, Higgins was a ...
;
conceptual art Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called insta ...
, first developed by
Henry Flynt Henry Flynt (born 1940 in Greensboro, North Carolina) is an American philosopher, musician, writer, activist, and artist connected to the 1960s New York avant-garde. He coined the term "concept art" in the early 1960s, during which time he was a ...
, an artist contentiously associated with Fluxus; and
video art Video art is an art form which relies on using video technology as a visual and audio medium. Video art emerged during the late 1960s as new consumer video technology such as video tape recorders became available outside corporate broadcasting ...
, first pioneered by
Nam June Paik Nam June Paik (; July 20, 1932 – January 29, 2006) was a Korean American artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the founder of video art. He is credited with the first use (1974) of the term "electronic super hi ...
and
Wolf Vostell Wolf Vostell (14 October 1932 – 3 April 1998) was a German painter and sculptor, considered one of the early adopters of video art and installation art and pioneer of Happenings and Fluxus. Techniques such as blurring and Dé-coll/age are ch ...
. Dutch gallerist and art critic describes Fluxus as "the most radical and experimental art movement of the sixties".. 1979. ''Fluxus, the Most Radical and Experimental Art Movement of the Sixties'' Amsterdam: Editions Galerie A. They produced performance "events", which included enactments of scores, "
Neo-Dada Neo-Dada was a movement with audio, visual and literary manifestations that had similarities in method or intent with earlier Dada artwork. It sought to close the gap between art and daily life, and was a combination of playfulness, iconoclasm, a ...
"
noise music Noise music is a genre of music that is characterised by the expressive use of noise within a musical context. This type of music tends to challenge the distinction that is made in conventional musical practices between musical and non-musical ...
, and time-based works, as well as
concrete poetry Concrete poetry is an arrangement of linguistic elements in which the typographical effect is more important in conveying meaning than verbal significance. It is sometimes referred to as visual poetry, a term that has now developed a distinct mea ...
,
visual art The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile arts ...
,
urban planning Urban planning, also known as town planning, city planning, regional planning, or rural planning, is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water, ...
, architecture, design, literature, and publishing. Many Fluxus artists share anti-commercial and
anti-art Anti-art is a loosely used term applied to an array of concepts and attitudes that reject prior definitions of art and question art in general. Somewhat paradoxically, anti-art tends to conduct this questioning and rejection from the vantage poi ...
sensibilities. Fluxus is sometimes described as "intermedia". The ideas and practices of composer
John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading fi ...
heavily influenced Fluxus. Especially, his notions that one should embark on an artwork without a conception of its end, and his understanding of the work as a site of interaction between artist and audience. The process of creating was privileged over the finished product. Another notable influence were the readymades of
Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...
, a French artist who was active in
Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 192 ...
(1916 – c. 1922).
George Maciunas George Maciunas (; lt, Jurgis Mačiūnas; November 8, 1931 – May 9, 1978) was a Lithuanian American artist, born in Kaunas. A founding member and the central coordinator of Fluxus, an international community of artists, architects, composers ...
, largely considered to be the founder of this fluid movement, coined the name Fluxus in 1961 to title a proposed magazine. Many artists of the 1960s took part in Fluxus activities, including
Joseph Beuys Joseph Heinrich Beuys ( , ; 12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism, sociology, and anthroposophy. He was a founder of a provocative art mov ...
,
George Brecht George Brecht (August 27, 1926 – December 5, 2008), born George Ellis MacDiarmid, was an American conceptual artist and avant-garde composer, as well as a professional chemist who worked as a consultant for companies including Pfizer, Johnson ...
,
John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading fi ...
,
Robert Filliou Robert Filliou (17 January 1926 – 2 December 1987) was a French artist associated with Fluxus, who produced works as a filmmaker, "action poet," sculptor, and happenings maestro. Life In 1943, Filliou became a member of the French Communi ...
,
Al Hansen Alfred Earl "Al" Hansen (5 October 1927 – 20 June 1995) was an American artist. He was a member of Fluxus, a movement that originated on an artists' collective around George Maciunas. He was the father of Andy Warhol protégé Bibbe Hanse ...
,
Dick Higgins Dick Higgins (15 March 1938 – 25 October 1998) was an American artist, composer, art theorist, poet, publisher, printmaker, and a co-founder of the Fluxus international artistic movement (and community). Inspired by John Cage, Higgins was a ...
,
Bengt af Klintberg Bengt af Klintberg (Bengt Knut Erik af Klintberg) (b. 25 December 1938 in Stockholm) is a Sweden, Swedish folklorist, ethnologist, and artist who is known for his work on modern urban legends. His work reached a large audience with such books as '' ...
,
Alison Knowles Alison Knowles (born 1933) is an American visual artist known for her installations, performances, soundworks, and publications. Knowles was a founding member of the Fluxus movement, an international network of artists who aspired to merge diffe ...
, Addi Køpcke,
Yoko Ono Yoko Ono ( ; ja, 小野 洋子, Ono Yōko, usually spelled in katakana ; born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art and filmmaking. Ono grew up i ...
,
Nam June Paik Nam June Paik (; July 20, 1932 – January 29, 2006) was a Korean American artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the founder of video art. He is credited with the first use (1974) of the term "electronic super hi ...
,
Shigeko Kubota (2 August 1937 – 23 July 2015) was a Japanese video artist, sculptor and avant-garde performance artist, who mostly lived in New York City. She was one of the first artists to adopt the portable video camera Sony Portapak in 1970, likening it ...
,
La Monte Young La Monte Thornton Young (born October 14, 1935) is an American composer, musician, and performance artist recognized as one of the first American minimalist composers and a central figure in Fluxus and post-war avant-garde music. He is best kno ...
,
Joseph Byrd Joseph Hunter Byrd, Jr. (born December 19, 1937) is an American composer, musician and academic. After first becoming known as an experimental composer in New York City and Los Angeles in the early and mid-1960s, he became the leader of The Un ...
,
Ben Patterson Benjamin Patterson (May 29, 1934 – June 25, 2016) was an American musician, artist, and one of the founders of the Fluxus movement. Biography Benjamin Patterson was born in Pittsburgh on May 29, 1934. He attended the University of Michigan fr ...
,
Daniel Spoerri Daniel Spoerri (born 27 March 1930) is a Swiss artist and writer born in Romania. Spoerri is best known for his "snare-pictures," a type of assemblage or object art, in which he captures a group of objects, such as the remains of meals eaten by in ...
,
Ken Friedman Ken Friedman (born September 19, 1949 in New London, Connecticut) is a design researcher. He was a member of Fluxus, an international laboratory for experimental art, architecture, design, and music. Friedman joined Fluxus in 1966 as the youngest m ...
,
Terry Riley Terrence Mitchell "Terry" Riley (born June 24, 1935) is an American composer and performing musician best known as a pioneer of the minimalist school of composition. Influenced by jazz and Indian classical music, his music became notable for it ...
and
Wolf Vostell Wolf Vostell (14 October 1932 – 3 April 1998) was a German painter and sculptor, considered one of the early adopters of video art and installation art and pioneer of Happenings and Fluxus. Techniques such as blurring and Dé-coll/age are ch ...
. Not only were they a diverse community of collaborators who influenced each other, they were also, largely, friends. They collectively had what were, at the time, radical ideas about art and the role of art in society. The intersecting communities within Fluxus and the way that Fluxus developed in overlapping stages meant that participants each had very different ideas about what Fluxus was. Fluxus founder George Maciunas proposed a well known manifesto, but few considered Fluxus to be a true movement, and therefore the manifesto was not largely adopted. Instead, a series of festivals in Wiesbaden, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Amsterdam, London, and New York, gave rise to a loose but robust community with many similar beliefs. In keeping with the reputation Fluxus earned as a forum of experimentation, some Fluxus artists came to describe Fluxus as a laboratory. Fluxus played an important role in the broadening of what is considered art.


History to 1965


Origins

The origins of Fluxus lie in many of the concepts explored by composer
John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading fi ...
in his
experimental music Experimental music is a general label for any music or music genre that pushes existing boundaries and genre definitions. Experimental compositional practice is defined broadly by exploratory sensibilities radically opposed to, and questioning of, ...
of the 1930s through the 1960s. After attending courses on Zen Buddhism taught by
D. T. Suzuki , self-rendered in 1894 as "Daisetz", was a Japanese-American Buddhist monk, essayist, philosopher, religious scholar, translator, and writer. He was a scholar and author of books and essays on Buddhism, Zen and Shin that were instrumental in sp ...
, Cage taught a series of classes in experimental composition from 1957 to 1959 at the
New School for Social Research The New School for Social Research (NSSR) is a graduate-level educational institution that is one of the divisions of The New School in New York City, United States. The university was founded in 1919 as a home for progressive era thinkers. NSSR ...
in New York City. These classes explored the notions of chance and indeterminacy in art, using music scores as a basis for compositions that could be performed in potentially infinite ways. Some of the artists and musicians who became involved in Fluxus, including
Jackson Mac Low Jackson Mac Low (1922–2004) was an American poet, performance artist, composer and playwright, known to most readers of poetry as a practioneer of systematic chance operations and other non-intentional compositional methods in his work, whi ...
,
La Monte Young La Monte Thornton Young (born October 14, 1935) is an American composer, musician, and performance artist recognized as one of the first American minimalist composers and a central figure in Fluxus and post-war avant-garde music. He is best kno ...
,
George Brecht George Brecht (August 27, 1926 – December 5, 2008), born George Ellis MacDiarmid, was an American conceptual artist and avant-garde composer, as well as a professional chemist who worked as a consultant for companies including Pfizer, Johnson ...
,
Al Hansen Alfred Earl "Al" Hansen (5 October 1927 – 20 June 1995) was an American artist. He was a member of Fluxus, a movement that originated on an artists' collective around George Maciunas. He was the father of Andy Warhol protégé Bibbe Hanse ...
, and
Dick Higgins Dick Higgins (15 March 1938 – 25 October 1998) was an American artist, composer, art theorist, poet, publisher, printmaker, and a co-founder of the Fluxus international artistic movement (and community). Inspired by John Cage, Higgins was a ...
attended Cage's classes. A major influence is found in the work of
Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...
. Also of importance was ''Dada Poets and Painters'', edited by Robert Motherwell, a book of translations of Dada texts that was widely read by members of Fluxus. The term
anti-art Anti-art is a loosely used term applied to an array of concepts and attitudes that reject prior definitions of art and question art in general. Somewhat paradoxically, anti-art tends to conduct this questioning and rejection from the vantage poi ...
, a precursor to
Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 192 ...
, was coined by Duchamp around 1913, when he created his first readymades from found objects (ordinary objects found or purchased and declared art). Indifferently chosen, readymades and altered readymades challenged the notion of art as an inherently optical experience, dependent on academic art skills. The most famous example is Duchamp's altered readymade ''
Fountain A fountain, from the Latin "fons" (genitive "fontis"), meaning source or Spring (hydrology), spring, is a decorative reservoir used for discharging water. It is also a structure that jets water into the air for a decorative or dramatic effect. ...
'' (1917), a work which he signed "R. Mutt." While taking refuge from WWI in New York, in 1915 Duchamp formed a Dada group with
Francis Picabia Francis Picabia (: born Francis-Marie Martinez de Picabia; 22January 1879 – 30November 1953) was a French avant-garde painter, poet and typographist. After experimenting with Impressionism and Pointillism, Picabia became associated with Cubism ...
and American artist
Man Ray Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky; August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was an American visual artist who spent most of his career in Paris. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealism, Surrealist movements, although his t ...
. Other key members included Arthur Craven,
Florine Stettheimer Florine Stettheimer (August 19, 1871 – May 11, 1944) was an American modernist painter, feminist, theatrical designer, poet, and salonnière. Stettheimer developed a feminine, theatrical painting style depicting her friends, family, and experi ...
, and the
Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven Elsa Baroness von Freytag-Loringhoven (née Else Hildegard Plötz; (12 July 1874 – 14 December 1927) was a German-born avant-garde visual artist and poet, who was active in Greenwich Village, New York, from 1913 to 1923, where her radical self ...
, credited by some with proposing the idea for
Fountain A fountain, from the Latin "fons" (genitive "fontis"), meaning source or Spring (hydrology), spring, is a decorative reservoir used for discharging water. It is also a structure that jets water into the air for a decorative or dramatic effect. ...
to Duchamp. By 1916 these artists, especially Duchamp, Man Ray, and Picabia, became the center for radical anti-art activities in New York City. Their artworks would inform Fluxus and
conceptual art Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called insta ...
in general. In the late 1950s and very early 1960s, Fluxus and contemporaneous groups or movements, including
Happenings A happening is a performance, event, or situation art, usually as performance art. The term was first used by Allan Kaprow during the 1950s to describe a range of art-related events. History Origins Allan Kaprow first coined the term "happen ...
,
Nouveau réalisme Nouveau réalisme (French: new realism) refers to an artistic movement founded in 1960 by the art critic Pierre Restany and the painter Yves Klein during the first collective exposition in the Apollinaire gallery in Milan. Pierre Restany wrot ...
,
mail art Mail art, also known as postal art and correspondence art, is an artistic movement centered on sending small-scale works through the postal service. It initially developed out of what eventually became Ray Johnson's New York Correspondence Schoo ...
, and action art in Japan, Austria, and other international locations were, often placed under the rubric of
Neo-Dada Neo-Dada was a movement with audio, visual and literary manifestations that had similarities in method or intent with earlier Dada artwork. It sought to close the gap between art and daily life, and was a combination of playfulness, iconoclasm, a ...
". A number of other contemporary events are credited as either anticipating Fluxus or as constituting proto-Fluxus events. The most commonly cited include the series of Chambers Street loft concerts, in New York, curated by
Yoko Ono Yoko Ono ( ; ja, 小野 洋子, Ono Yōko, usually spelled in katakana ; born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art and filmmaking. Ono grew up i ...
and La Monte Young in 1961, featuring pieces by Ono,
Jackson Mac Low Jackson Mac Low (1922–2004) was an American poet, performance artist, composer and playwright, known to most readers of poetry as a practioneer of systematic chance operations and other non-intentional compositional methods in his work, whi ...
,
Joseph Byrd Joseph Hunter Byrd, Jr. (born December 19, 1937) is an American composer, musician and academic. After first becoming known as an experimental composer in New York City and Los Angeles in the early and mid-1960s, he became the leader of The Un ...
, and
Henry Flynt Henry Flynt (born 1940 in Greensboro, North Carolina) is an American philosopher, musician, writer, activist, and artist connected to the 1960s New York avant-garde. He coined the term "concept art" in the early 1960s, during which time he was a ...
; the month-long ''Yam'' festival held in upstate New York by George Brecht and
Robert Watts Robert Watts (born 23 May 1938)Adam Pirani, ''Robert Watts: Secrets of "The Temple of Doom"'', Starlog #94, April 1985, pp 23–26,62. is a British retired film producer who is best known for his involvement with the '' Star Wars'' and '' India ...
in May 1963 with
Ray Johnson Raymond Edward "Ray" Johnson (October 16, 1927 – January 13, 1995) was an American artist. Known primarily as a collagist and correspondence artist, he was a seminal figure in the history of Neo-Dada and early Pop art and was described as
and
Allan Kaprow Allan Kaprow (August 23, 1927 – April 5, 2006) was an American painter, assemblagist and a pioneer in establishing the concepts of performance art. He helped to develop the "Environment" and "Happening" in the late 1950s and 1960s, as well as ...
(the culmination of a year's worth of
Mail Art Mail art, also known as postal art and correspondence art, is an artistic movement centered on sending small-scale works through the postal service. It initially developed out of what eventually became Ray Johnson's New York Correspondence Schoo ...
pieces); and a series of concerts held in
Mary Bauermeister Mary Hilde Ruth Bauermeister (born 7 September 1934) is a German artist who works in sculpture, drawing, installation, performance, and music. Influenced by Fluxus artists and Nouveau Réalisme, her work addresses esoteric issues of how informati ...
's studio, Cologne, 1960–61, featuring
Nam June Paik Nam June Paik (; July 20, 1932 – January 29, 2006) was a Korean American artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the founder of video art. He is credited with the first use (1974) of the term "electronic super hi ...
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. As one of the movement's founders, Dick Higgins, stated:
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.
The American musician and artist La Monte Young had been enlisted to guest-edit an issue of a literary journal, ''Beatitude East'', and asked George Maciunas, a trained graphic designer, for help with the layout. Maciunas supplied the paper, design, and some money for publishing the anthology which contained the work of a more or less arbitrary group of New York
avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
artists from that time. By the end of 1961 before ''
An Anthology of Chance Operations ''An Anthology of Chance Operations'' (An Anthology) was an artist's book publication from the early 1960s of experimental neodada art and music composition that used John Cage–inspired indeterminacy. It was edited by La Monte Young and DIY ...
'' was completed (it was finally published in 1963 by Mac Low and Young), Maciunas had moved to Germany to escape his creditors and work for the U.S. military. From there, he continued his contact with the New York artists and with artists like Benjamin Patterson, whom he met in Europe, by September 1962 was joined by Dick Higgins and Alison Knowles, who traveled to Europe to help him promote a second planned publication to be called "Fluxus", the first of a series of "yearbooks" of artists' works. On September 25, 1965, the FluxOrchestra, with La Monte Young conducting, played at
Carnegie Recital Hall Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhatta ...
in New York City with a poster and program designed by George Maciunas. Copies of the program were folded into paper airplane and launched during the evening, which included performances of "Falling Event" by
Chieko Shiomi is a Japanese artist, composer, and performer who played a key role in the development of Fluxus. A co-founder of the seminal postwar Japanese experimental music collective Group Ongaku, she is known for her investigations of the nature and l ...
, "Symphony No. 3 'On the Floor from 'Clouds Scissors'" by
George Brecht George Brecht (August 27, 1926 – December 5, 2008), born George Ellis MacDiarmid, was an American conceptual artist and avant-garde composer, as well as a professional chemist who worked as a consultant for companies including Pfizer, Johnson ...
, "4 Pieces for Orchestra to La Monte Young" by Yoko Ono, "Disappearing Music for Face" by Shiomi, "Tactical Pieces for Orchestra" and "Olivetti Adding Machine in Memoriam for Adriano Olivetti" by Anthony Cox, "Trance for Orchestra" by Watts, "Sky Piece to Jesus Christ*" by Ono, "Octet for Winds 'In the Water' from 'Cloud Scissors" by Brecht, "Piece" by
Shigeko Kubota (2 August 1937 – 23 July 2015) was a Japanese video artist, sculptor and avant-garde performance artist, who mostly lived in New York City. She was one of the first artists to adopt the portable video camera Sony Portapak in 1970, likening it ...
, "1965 $50" by Young, "Piano Piece" by
Tomas Schmit Tomas Schmit (born 13 July 1943 in Thier, now part of Wipperfürth, died 4 October 2006 in Berlin, Germany) was an artist and author associated with the Fluxus movement of the early 1960s.
, "Sword Piece" by Cox, "Music for Late Afternoon Together With" by Shiomi, "2" by Watts, "c/t Trace" by Watts, "Intermission Event" by
Willem de Ridder Willem de Ridder ('s-Hertogenbosch 14 October 1939 – 29 December 2022) was a Dutch anarchist and artist, known as a founder of Fluxus. He was the foremost Fluxus member in the Netherlands. He showed and sold Fluxus works in his gallery, Amst ...
, "Moviee Music" by
Stan Vanderbeek Stan VanDerBeek (January 6, 1927 – September 19, 1984) was an American experimental filmmaker known for his collage works. Life VanDerBeek studied art and architecture at Manhattan's Cooper Union before transferring to Black Mountain Colleg ...
, "Mechanical Orchestra" by Joe Jones, and "Secret Room" by
Ben Vautier Ben Vautier, also known simply as Ben (born 18 July 1935 in Naples, Italy), is a French artist. Vautier lives and works in Nice, where he ran a record shop called ''Magazin'' between 1958 and 1973. Biography Benjamin Vautier was born on 18 Ju ...
.


Early Fluxus and Neo-Dada

Lithuanian-born
George Maciunas George Maciunas (; lt, Jurgis Mačiūnas; November 8, 1931 – May 9, 1978) was a Lithuanian American artist, born in Kaunas. A founding member and the central coordinator of Fluxus, an international community of artists, architects, composers ...
coined the name Fluxus for art produced by a range of artists with a shared sensibility as an attempt to 'fuse... cultural, social, & political revolutionaries into united front and action'. After fleeing Lithuania at the end of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, his family settled in New York, where he first met a group of avant-garde artists and musicians centered around John Cage and La Monte Young. After opening a short-lived art gallery on
Madison Avenue Madison Avenue is a north-south avenue in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, United States, that carries northbound one-way traffic. It runs from Madison Square (at 23rd Street) to meet the southbound Harlem River Drive at 142nd Stre ...
, which showed work by Higgins,
Yoko Ono Yoko Ono ( ; ja, 小野 洋子, Ono Yōko, usually spelled in katakana ; born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art and filmmaking. Ono grew up i ...
,
Jonas Mekas Jonas Mekas (; December 24, 1922 – January 23, 2019) was a Lithuanian-American filmmaker, poet, and artist who has been called "the godfather of American avant-garde cinema". Mekas' work has been exhibited in museums and at festivals worldwi ...
,
Ray Johnson Raymond Edward "Ray" Johnson (October 16, 1927 – January 13, 1995) was an American artist. Known primarily as a collagist and correspondence artist, he was a seminal figure in the history of Neo-Dada and early Pop art and was described as
, Flynt and Young, Maciunas moved to
Wiesbaden Wiesbaden () is a city in central western Germany and the capital of the state of Hesse. , it had 290,955 inhabitants, plus approximately 21,000 United States citizens (mostly associated with the United States Army). The Wiesbaden urban area ...
, West Germany, having taken a job as a graphic designer with the
US Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...
in late 1961 after the gallery had gone bust. Maciunas first publicly coined the term ''Fluxus'' (meaning 'to flow') in a 'brochure prospectus' that he distributed to the audience at a festival he had organized, called ''Aprés Cage; Kleinen Sommerfest'' (After Cage; a Small Summer Festival), in
Wuppertal Wuppertal (; "''Wupper Dale''") is, with a population of approximately 355,000, the seventh-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia as well as the 17th-largest city of Germany. It was founded in 1929 by the merger of the cities and to ...
, West Germany, 9 June 1962. Maciunas was an avid art historian, and initially referred to fluxus as 'neo-dadaism' or 'renewed dadaism'. He wrote a number of letters to
Raoul Hausmann Raoul Hausmann (July 12, 1886 – February 1, 1971) was an Austrian artist and writer. One of the key figures in Berlin Dada, his experimental photographic collages, sound poetry, and institutional critiques would have a profound influence on ...
, an original
dada Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 192 ...
ist, outlining his ideas. Hausmann discouraged the use of the term;
I note with much pleasure what you said about German neodadaists—but I think even the Americans should not use the term "neodadaism" because neo means nothing and -ism is old-fashioned. Why not simply "Fluxus"? It seems to me much better, because it's new, and dada is historic.
As part of the festival, Maciunas wrote a lecture entitled 'Neo-Dada in the United States'. After an attempt to define 'Concretist Neo-Dada' art, he explained that Fluxus was opposed to the exclusion of the everyday from art. Using 'anti-art and artistic banalities', Fluxus would fight the 'traditional artificialities of art'. The lecture ended with the declaration "Anti-art is life, is nature, is true reality—it is one and all."


European festivals and the Fluxkits

In 1962, Maciunas, Higgins and Knowles, traveled to Europe to promote the planned Fluxus publication with concerts of antique musical instruments. With the help of a group of artists including
Joseph Beuys Joseph Heinrich Beuys ( , ; 12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism, sociology, and anthroposophy. He was a founder of a provocative art mov ...
and
Wolf Vostell Wolf Vostell (14 October 1932 – 3 April 1998) was a German painter and sculptor, considered one of the early adopters of video art and installation art and pioneer of Happenings and Fluxus. Techniques such as blurring and Dé-coll/age are ch ...
, Maciunas eventually organised a series of ''Fluxfests'' across Western Europe. Starting with 14 concerts between 1 and 23 September 1962, at
Wiesbaden Wiesbaden () is a city in central western Germany and the capital of the state of Hesse. , it had 290,955 inhabitants, plus approximately 21,000 United States citizens (mostly associated with the United States Army). The Wiesbaden urban area ...
, these ''Fluxfests'' presented work by musicians such as John Cage, Ligeti,
Penderecki Krzysztof Eugeniusz Penderecki (; 23 November 1933 – 29 March 2020) was a Polish composer and conductor. His best known works include ''Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima'', Symphony No. 3, his '' St Luke Passion'', ''Polish Requiem'', ''A ...
,
Terry Riley Terrence Mitchell "Terry" Riley (born June 24, 1935) is an American composer and performing musician best known as a pioneer of the minimalist school of composition. Influenced by jazz and Indian classical music, his music became notable for it ...
and
Brion Gysin Brion Gysin (19 January 1916 – 13 July 1986) was a British-Canadian painter, writer, sound poet, performance artist and inventor of experimental devices. He is best known for his use of the cut-up technique, alongside his close friend, the ...
alongside
performance A performance is an act of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. It is also defined as the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function. Management science In the work place ...
pieces written by Higgins, Knowles, George Brecht and
Nam June Paik Nam June Paik (; July 20, 1932 – January 29, 2006) was a Korean American artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the founder of video art. He is credited with the first use (1974) of the term "electronic super hi ...
,
Ben Patterson Benjamin Patterson (May 29, 1934 – June 25, 2016) was an American musician, artist, and one of the founders of the Fluxus movement. Biography Benjamin Patterson was born in Pittsburgh on May 29, 1934. He attended the University of Michigan fr ...
,
Robert Filliou Robert Filliou (17 January 1926 – 2 December 1987) was a French artist associated with Fluxus, who produced works as a filmmaker, "action poet," sculptor, and happenings maestro. Life In 1943, Filliou became a member of the French Communi ...
, and
Emmett Williams Emmett Williams (4 April 1925 – 14 February 2007) was an American poet and visual artist. He was married to British visual artist Ann Noël. Williams was born in Greenville, South Carolina, grew up in Virginia, and lived in Europe from 1 ...
, amongst many others. One performance in particular, ''Piano Activities'' by
Philip Corner Philip Lionel Corner (born April 10, 1933; name sometimes given as Phil Corner) is an American composer, trombonist, alphornist, vocalist, pianist, music theorist, music educator, and visual artist. Biography After The High School of Music & Ar ...
, became notorious by challenging the important status of the piano in post-war German homes. The score—which asks for any number of performers to, among other things, "play", "pluck or tap", "scratch or rub", "drop objects" on, "act on strings with", "strike soundboard, pins, lid or drag various kinds of objects across them" and "act in any way on underside of piano"—resulted in the total destruction of a piano when performed by Maciunas, Higgins and others at Wiesbaden. The performance was considered scandalous enough to be shown on German television four times, with the introduction "The lunatics have escaped!"
At the end we did Corner's ''Piano Activities'' not according to his instructions since we systematically destroyed a piano which I bought for $5 and had to have it all cut up to throw it away, otherwise we would have had to pay movers, a very practical composition, but German sentiments about this "instrument of Chopin" were hurt and they made a row about it...
At the same time, Maciunas used his connections at work to start printing cheap mass-produced books and multiples by some of the artists that were involved in the performances. The first three to be printed were ''Composition 1961'' by La Monte Youn
see
''An Anthology of Chance Operations'' edited by Young and Mac Low and ''
Water Yam ''Dioscorea alata'', also known as purple yam, ube (, ), or greater yam, among many other names, is a species of yam (a tuber). The tubers are usually a vivid violet-purple to bright lavender in color (hence the common name), but some range in ...
'', by George Brecht. ''Water Yam'', a series of event scores printed on small sheets of card and collected together in a cardboard box, was the first in a series of artworks that Maciunas printed that became known as ''Fluxkits''. Cheap, mass-produced and easily distributed, ''Fluxkits'' were originally intended to form an ever-expanding library of modern
performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...
. ''Water Yam'' was published in an edition of 1000 and originally cost $4. By April 1964, almost a year later, Maciunas still had 996 copies unsold. Maciunas' original plan had been to design, edit and pay for each edition himself, in exchange for the copyright to be held by the collective. Profits were to be split 80/20 at first, in favor of the artist. Since most of the composers already had publishing deals, Fluxus quickly moved away from music toward performance and visual art. John Cage, for instance, never published work under the Fluxus moniker due to his contract with the music publishers
Edition Peters Edition Peters is a classical music publisher founded in Leipzig, Germany in 1800. History The company came into being on 1 December 1800 when the Viennese composer Franz Anton Hoffmeister (1754–1812) and the local organist Ambrosius Kühnel ( ...
.
Maciunas seemed to have a fantastic ability to get things done.... if you had things to be printed he could get them printed. It's pretty hard in East Brunswick to get good offset printing. It's not impossible, but it's not so easy, and since I'm very lazy it was a relief to find somebody who could take the burden off my hands. So there was this guy Maciunas, a Lithuanian or Bulgarian, or somehow a refugee or whatever—beautifully dressed—"astonishing looking" would be a better adjective. He was somehow able to carry the whole thing off, without my having to go 57 miles to find a printer.
Since Maciunas was
colorblind Color blindness or color vision deficiency (CVD) is the decreased ability to see color or differences in color. It can impair tasks such as selecting ripe fruit, choosing clothing, and reading traffic lights. Color blindness may make some aca ...
, Fluxus multiples were almost always black and white.


New York and the FluxShops

After his contract with the US Air Force was terminated due to ill health, Maciunas was forced to return to the US on 3 September 1963. Once back in New York, he set about organizing a series of street concerts and opened a new shop, the 'Fluxhall', on Canal Street. 12 concerts, "away from the beaten track of the New York art scene", took place on Canal Street, 11 April to 23 May 1964. With photographs taken by Maciunas himself, pieces by
Ben Vautier Ben Vautier, also known simply as Ben (born 18 July 1935 in Naples, Italy), is a French artist. Vautier lives and works in Nice, where he ran a record shop called ''Magazin'' between 1958 and 1973. Biography Benjamin Vautier was born on 18 Ju ...
,
Alison Knowles Alison Knowles (born 1933) is an American visual artist known for her installations, performances, soundworks, and publications. Knowles was a founding member of the Fluxus movement, an international network of artists who aspired to merge diffe ...
and
Takehisa Kosugi was a Japanese composer, violinist and artist associated with the Fluxus movement. Biography Kosugi studied musicology at the Tokyo University of the Arts and graduated in 1962. He first became drawn to music listening to his father play har ...
were performed in the street for free, although in practice there was 'no audience to speak of' anyway.
The people in Fluxus had understood, as Brecht explained, that "concert halls, theaters, and art galleries" were "mummifying". Instead, these artists found themselves "preferring streets, homes, and railway stations...." Maciunas recognized a radical political potential in all this forthrightly anti-institutional production, which was an important source for his own deep commitment to it. Deploying his expertise as a professional graphic designer, Maciunas played an important role in projecting upon Fluxus whatever coherence it would later seem to have had.
Along with the New York shop, Maciunas built up a distribution network for the new art across Europe and later outlets in California and Japan. Gallery and mail order outlets were established in Amsterdam, Villefranche-Sur-Mer, Milan and London, amongst others. By 1965, the first anthology ''
Fluxus 1 ''Fluxus 1'' is an artists' book edited and produced by the Lithuanian-American artist George Maciunas, containing works by a series of artists associated with Fluxus, the international collective of avant-garde artists primarily active in the 196 ...
'' was available, consisting of manila envelopes bolted together containing work by numerous artists who would later become famous including La Monte Young,
Christo Christo Vladimirov Javacheff (1935–2020) and Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon (1935–2009), known as Christo and Jeanne-Claude, were artists noted for their large-scale, site-specific art, site-specific environmental art, environmental art i ...
,
Joseph Byrd Joseph Hunter Byrd, Jr. (born December 19, 1937) is an American composer, musician and academic. After first becoming known as an experimental composer in New York City and Los Angeles in the early and mid-1960s, he became the leader of The Un ...
and Yoko Ono. Other pieces available included packs of altered playing cards by George Brecht, sensory boxes by
Ay-O Takao Iijima (born May 19, 1931), better known by his art name Ay-O, (靉嘔 ''Ai Ō''), is a Japanese avant-garde visual and performance artist who has been associated with Fluxus since its international beginnings in the 1960s. Biography Ear ...
, a regular newsletter with contributions by artists and musicians such as
Ray Johnson Raymond Edward "Ray" Johnson (October 16, 1927 – January 13, 1995) was an American artist. Known primarily as a collagist and correspondence artist, he was a seminal figure in the history of Neo-Dada and early Pop art and was described as
and John Cale, and tin cans filled with poems, songs and recipes about beans by
Alison Knowles Alison Knowles (born 1933) is an American visual artist known for her installations, performances, soundworks, and publications. Knowles was a founding member of the Fluxus movement, an international network of artists who aspired to merge diffe ...

see
. A videotape of George and Billy Maciunas' wedding was produced by
Dimitri Devyatkin Dimitri Devyatkin (born July 31, 1949) is an American director, producer, screenwriter, video artist, and journalist. Devyatkin uses elements of humor, art and new technology in his work. He is known as one of the first video makers to combine a ...
.


Stockhausen's ''Originale''

After returning to New York, Maciunas became reacquainted with Henry Flynt, who encouraged members of Fluxus to take a more overtly political stance. One of the results of these discussions was to set up a picket line at the American premiere of ''
Originale ''Originale'' (Originals, or "Real Characters"), musical theatre with ''Kontakte'', is a music theatre work by the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, written in collaboration with the artist Mary Bauermeister. It was first performed in 1961 i ...
'', a recent work by the German composer
Karlheinz Stockhausen Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. He is known for his groun ...
, 8 September 1964.Bloch, Mark. "On Originale.", from Bloch, Mark, editor
. "Robert Delford Brown: Meat, Maps and Militant Metaphysics", Cameron Museum of Art, Wilmington, North Carolina, 2008.
Stockhausen was deemed a 'Cultural Imperialist' by Maciunas and Flynt, while other members vehemently disagreed. The result was members of Fluxus, such as Nam June Paik and Jackson Mac Low, crossing a picket line made up of other members, including Ben Vautier and
Takako Saito is a Japanese artist closely associated with Fluxus, the international collective of avant-garde artists that was active primarily in the 1960s and 1970s. Saito contributed a number of performances and artworks to the movement, which continu ...
who handed out leaflets denouncing Stockhausen as "a characteristic European-North American ruling-class Artist". Dick Higgins participated in the picket, and then coolly joined the other performers inside;
Maciunas and his friend Henry Flynt tried to get the Fluxus people to march around outside the circus with white cards that said Originale was bad. And they tried to say that the Fluxus people who were in the circus weren't Fluxus any more. That was silly, because it made a split. I thought it was funny, and so first I walked around with Maciunas and with Henry with a card, then I went inside and joined the circus; so both groups got angry with me. Oh well. Some people say that Fluxus died that day—I once thought so myself—but it turned out I was wrong.
The event, arranged by
Charlotte Moorman Madeline Charlotte Moorman (November 18, 1933 – November 8, 1991) was an American cellist, performance artist, and advocate for avant-garde music. Referred to as the "Jeanne d'Arc of new music", she was the founder of the Annual Avant Garde Fest ...
as part of her ''2nd Annual New York Avant Garde Festival'', would cement animosities between Maciunas and her, with Maciunas frequently demanding that artists associated with Fluxus have nothing to do with the annual festival, and would often expel artists who ignored his demands. This hostility continued throughout Maciunas' life—much to Moorman's bemusement—despite her continued championing of Fluxus art and artists.


History, 1965–78


Perceived insurgencies and the Asiatic influence

The picketing of ''Originale'' marked the high point of Maciunas'
agitprop Agitprop (; from rus, агитпроп, r=agitpróp, portmanteau of ''agitatsiya'', "agitation" and ''propaganda'', "propaganda") refers to an intentional, vigorous promulgation of ideas. The term originated in Soviet Russia where it referred to ...
approach, an approach that estranged many of Fluxus' early proponents; Jackson Mac Low had resigned immediately after hearing 'antisocial' plans laid in April 1963, such as breaking down trucks under the Hudson River. Brecht threatened to quit on the same issue, and then left New York in the spring of 1965. Despite his continued allegiance to Fluxus ideals, Dick Higgins fell out with Maciunas around the same time, ostensibly over his setting up the
Something Else Press Something Else Press was founded by Dick Higgins in 1963. It published many important Intermedia texts and artworks by such Fluxus artists as Higgins, Ray Johnson, Alison Knowles, Allan Kaprow, George Brecht, Daniel Spoerri, Robert Filliou, Al ...
which printed many texts by key Fluxus-related personalities and other members of the avant garde. Charlotte Moorman continued to present her Annual Avant Garde Festival in New York. Such perceived insurrections in the coherence of Maciunas' leadership of Fluxus provided an opening for Fluxus to become increasingly influenced by Japanese members of the group. Since returning to Japan in 1961, Yoko Ono had been recommending colleagues look Maciunas up if they moved to New York; by the time she had returned, in early 1965, Hi Red Center,
Shigeko Kubota (2 August 1937 – 23 July 2015) was a Japanese video artist, sculptor and avant-garde performance artist, who mostly lived in New York City. She was one of the first artists to adopt the portable video camera Sony Portapak in 1970, likening it ...
, Takako Saito,
Mieko Shiomi was a Japanese amateur photographer in Shōwa era Japan. Life Shiomi was born in Osaka, and graduated from Shimizudani Girls' High School in 1927 (Shōwa 2). Shiomi joined the Tampei Photography Club in 1948, and thereafter joined two other ...
and
Ay-O Takao Iijima (born May 19, 1931), better known by his art name Ay-O, (靉嘔 ''Ai Ō''), is a Japanese avant-garde visual and performance artist who has been associated with Fluxus since its international beginnings in the 1960s. Biography Ear ...
had all started to make work for Fluxus, often of a contemplative nature. In 1969, Fluxus artist Joe Jones opened his ''JJ Music Store'' (aka ''Tone Deaf Music Store'') at 18
North Moore Street North Moore Street is a moderately trafficked street in TriBeCa, a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It runs roughly east–west between West Broadway and West Street. Automotive traffic is westbound only. Naming On street ...
, where he presented his repetitive
drone Drone most commonly refers to: * Drone (bee), a male bee, from an unfertilized egg * Unmanned aerial vehicle * Unmanned surface vehicle, watercraft * Unmanned underwater vehicle or underwater drone Drone, drones or The Drones may also refer to: ...
music machines. He created there an installation in the window so that anyone could press numerous door buttons to play the
noise music Noise music is a genre of music that is characterised by the expressive use of noise within a musical context. This type of music tends to challenge the distinction that is made in conventional musical practices between musical and non-musical ...
machines displayed there. Jones also presented small musical installation performances there, alone or with other Fluxus artists, such as
Yoko Ono Yoko Ono ( ; ja, 小野 洋子, Ono Yōko, usually spelled in katakana ; born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art and filmmaking. Ono grew up i ...
and
John Lennon John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 19408 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who achieved worldwide fame as founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of ...
, among others. From April 18th to June 12th, 1970, Ono and Lennon (aka
Plastic Ono Band The Plastic Ono Band was a rock band formed by John Lennon and Yoko Ono in 1969 for their collaborative and solo projects based on their 1968 Fluxus conceptual art project of the same name. Lennon and Ono began a personal and artistic relati ...
) presented a series of Fluxus art events and concerts there called ''GRAPEFRUIT FLUXBANQUET''. It was promoted with a poster designed by Fluxus leader
George Maciunas George Maciunas (; lt, Jurgis Mačiūnas; November 8, 1931 – May 9, 1978) was a Lithuanian American artist, born in Kaunas. A founding member and the central coordinator of Fluxus, an international community of artists, architects, composers ...
. Performances included ''Come Impersonating John Lennon & Yoko Ono, Grapefruit Banquet'' (April 11-17) by George Maciunas,
Yoshimasa Wada Yoshimasa "Yoshi" Wada (11 November 1943 – 18 May 2021) was a Japanese sound art installation artist and new music musician who lived in New York City and then San Francisco, California. Life Born in Japan, after moving to New York City Wa ...
, Nye Ffarrabas (formerly Bici Forbes and Bici Forbes Hendricks),
Geoffrey Hendricks Geoffrey Hendricks (July 30, 1931 in Littleton, New Hampshire – May 12, 2018) was an American artist associated with Fluxus since the mid 1960s. He was professor emeritus of art at Rutgers University, where he taught from 1956 to 2003 and was ass ...
, and
Robert Watts Robert Watts (born 23 May 1938)Adam Pirani, ''Robert Watts: Secrets of "The Temple of Doom"'', Starlog #94, April 1985, pp 23–26,62. is a British retired film producer who is best known for his involvement with the '' Star Wars'' and '' India ...
; ''Do It Yourself'' (April 11-17) by Yoko Ono; ''Tickets by John Lennon + Fluxagents'' (April 18–24) with Wada,
Ben Vautier Ben Vautier, also known simply as Ben (born 18 July 1935 in Naples, Italy), is a French artist. Vautier lives and works in Nice, where he ran a record shop called ''Magazin'' between 1958 and 1973. Biography Benjamin Vautier was born on 18 Ju ...
and Maciunas; ''Clinic by Yoko Ono + Hi Red Center'' (April 25-May 1); ''Blue Room by Yoko + Fluxmasterliars'' (May 2-8); ''Weight & Water by Yoko + Fluxfiremen'' (May 9-15); ''Capsule by Yoko + Flux Space Center'' (May 16–22) with Maciunas,
Paul Sharits Paul Jeffrey Sharits (February 7, 1943, Denver, Colorado—July 8, 1993, Buffalo, New York) was a visual artist, best known for his work in experimental, or avant-garde filmmaking, particularly what became known as the structural film movement, ...
,
George Brecht George Brecht (August 27, 1926 – December 5, 2008), born George Ellis MacDiarmid, was an American conceptual artist and avant-garde composer, as well as a professional chemist who worked as a consultant for companies including Pfizer, Johnson ...
,
Ay-O Takao Iijima (born May 19, 1931), better known by his art name Ay-O, (靉嘔 ''Ai Ō''), is a Japanese avant-garde visual and performance artist who has been associated with Fluxus since its international beginnings in the 1960s. Biography Ear ...
, Ono, Watts, John Cavanaugh; ''Portrait of
John Lennon John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 19408 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who achieved worldwide fame as founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of ...
as a Young Cloud by Yoko + Everybody'' (May 23–29); ''The Store by Yoko + Fluxfactory'' (May 30-June 5), with Ono, Maciunas, Wada, Ay-O; and finally ''Examination by Yoko + Fluxschool'' (June 6-12) with Ono, Geoffrey Hendricks, Watts,
Mieko Shiomi was a Japanese amateur photographer in Shōwa era Japan. Life Shiomi was born in Osaka, and graduated from Shimizudani Girls' High School in 1927 (Shōwa 2). Shiomi joined the Tampei Photography Club in 1948, and thereafter joined two other ...
and
Robert Filliou Robert Filliou (17 January 1926 – 2 December 1987) was a French artist associated with Fluxus, who produced works as a filmmaker, "action poet," sculptor, and happenings maestro. Life In 1943, Filliou became a member of the French Communi ...
.


Blurring boundaries

As Fluxus gradually became more famous, Maciunas' ambitions for the sale of cheap multiples grew. The second flux-anthology, the ''Fluxkit'' (late 1964), collected together early 3D work made by the collective in a businessman's case, an idea borrowed directly from Duchamp's ''Boite en Valise'' Within a year, plans for a new anthology, ''Fluxus 2'', were in full swing to contain Flux films by
John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading fi ...
and Yoko Ono (with hand held projectors provided), disrupted matchboxes and postcards by Ben Vautier, plastic food by
Claes Oldenburg Claes Oldenburg (January 28, 1929 – July 18, 2022) was a Swedish-born American sculptor, best known for his public art installations typically featuring large replicas of everyday objects. Another theme in his work is soft sculpture versions ...
, FluxMedicine by
Shigeko Kubota (2 August 1937 – 23 July 2015) was a Japanese video artist, sculptor and avant-garde performance artist, who mostly lived in New York City. She was one of the first artists to adopt the portable video camera Sony Portapak in 1970, likening it ...
(containing empty pill packages), and artworks made of rocks, ink stamps, outdated travel tickets, undoable puzzles and a machine to facilitate humming. Maciunas' belief in the collective extended to authorship; a number of pieces from this period were anonymous, mis-attributed, or have had their authorship since questioned. As a further complication, Maciunas was in the habit of dramatically changing ideas submitted by various artists before he put the works into production. ''Solid Plastic in Plastic Box'', credited to
Per Kirkeby Per Kirkeby (1 September 1938 – 9 May 2018) was a Danish painter, poet, film maker and sculptor. Biography By the time Kirkeby completed a masters degree in arctic geology at the University of Copenhagen in 1964, he was already part of the ...
1967, for instance, had originally been realised by Kirkeby as a metal box, inscribed 'This Box Contains Wood'. When opened, the box would be found to contain sawdust. By the time the multiple had been manufactured by Maciunas, it was a block of solid plastic contained in a plastic box of the same color. Conversely, Maciunas assigned ''Degree Face Clock'', in which a clock face is measured out in 360°, to Kirkeby despite being an idea by
Robert Watts Robert Watts (born 23 May 1938)Adam Pirani, ''Robert Watts: Secrets of "The Temple of Doom"'', Starlog #94, April 1985, pp 23–26,62. is a British retired film producer who is best known for his involvement with the '' Star Wars'' and '' India ...
;
Some years ago, when I spoke with Robert Watts about ''Degree Face Clock'' and ''Compass Face Clock'', he had recalled thinking up the idea himself and was surprised that George Maciunas advertised them as Per Kirkeby's. Watts shrugged and said that was the way George worked. There would be ideas in the air and Maciunas would assign the piece to one artist or another.
Other tactics from this time included Maciunas buying large amounts of plastic boxes wholesale, and handing them out to artists with the simple request to turn them into Fluxkits, and the use of the rapidly growing international network of artists to contribute items needed to complete works. Robert Watts' ''Fluxatlas'', 1973, for instance, contains small rocks sent by members of the group from around the world. In addition to his numerous original compositions which have joined the collective's catalog of works, Larry Miller, associated with the group since 1969, has also been active as an interpreter of the "classic" scores and responsible for bringing the group's works to a wider public, blurring the lines between artist, producer and researcher. Besides Miller's own artistic work, he has also organized, reconstructed and performed at numerous Fluxus events and assembled an extensive collection of material on the history of Fluxus. Through Miller, Fluxus attracted media coverage such as the worldwide CNN coverage of ''Off Limits'' exhibit at Newark Museum, 1999. Other Miller activities as organizer, performer and presenter within the Fluxus milieu include ''Performance in Fluxus Continue 1963–2003'' at Musee d'Art et d'Art Contemporain in Nice; ''Fluxus a la Carte'' in Amsterdam; and ''Centraal Fluxus Festival'' at Centraal Museum, Utrecht, Netherlands. In 2004, for Geoff Hendricks' ''Critical Mass: Happenings, Fluxus, Performance, Intermedia and Rutgers University 1958–1972'', Miller reprised and updated the track and field events of the Flux Olympics, first presented in 1970. For ''Do-it Yourself Fluxus'' at AI – Art Interactive – in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Miller worked as the curatorial consultant for an exhibit of works that allowed viewers hands-on experience including the reconstruction of several sections of the historic ''Flux Labyrinth'', a massive and intricate maze that Miller originally constructed with George Maciunas at ''Akademie der Künste'', Berlin in 1976 and which included sections by several of the Fluxus artists. Miller created a new version of the ''Flux Labyrinth'' at the ''In the Spirit of Fluxus'' exhibit at the Walker Art Center in 1994, where Griel Marcus said, "Miller was... fine tuning the monster."


Feminism

Fluxus women artists were founding members and contributed works in varying media and with differing content. Some made experimental and performative work having to do with the female body that created a powerful female presence, which existed within Fluxus from the group's beginning. This is illustrated by works such as Carolee Schneemann's "Interior Scroll", Yoko Ono's "
Cut Piece Yoko Ono ( ; ja, 小野 洋子, Ono Yōko, usually spelled in katakana ; born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art and filmmaking. Ono grew up i ...
", and
Shigeko Kubota (2 August 1937 – 23 July 2015) was a Japanese video artist, sculptor and avant-garde performance artist, who mostly lived in New York City. She was one of the first artists to adopt the portable video camera Sony Portapak in 1970, likening it ...
's "Vagina Painting". Women working within Fluxus were often simultaneously critiquing their position within a male dominated society while also exposing the inequalities within an art collective that claimed to be open and diverse. George Maciunas, in his rejection of Schneeman as a member of Fluxus, called her "guilty of Baroque tendencies, overt sexuality, and theatrical excess". "Interior Scroll" was a response to Schneemann's experience as a filmmaker in the 1950s and 1960s, when male filmmakers claimed that women should restrict themselves to dance. In ''An evening with Fluxus women: a roundtable discussion'', hosted at New York University on 19 February 2009 by ''Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory'' and the Department of Performance Studies, a passage from Mieko Shiomi reads "...the best thing about Fluxus, I think, is that there was no discrimination on the basis of nationality and gender. Fluxus was open to anyone who shared similar thoughts about art and life. That's why women artists could be so active without feeling any frustration." Shigeo Kubota's ''Vagina Painting'' (1965), was performed by attaching a paintbrush dipped in red paint to her underwear, then applying it to a piece of paper while moving over it in a crouching position. The paint evoked menstrual blood. ''Vagina Painting'' has been interpreted as a critique of
Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his " drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a hor ...
's action paintings, and the male-dominated
abstract expressionist Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...
tradition.


Utopian communities

A number of artists in the group were interested in setting up Flux communes, intending to 'bridge the gap between the artist community and the surrounding society' The first of these, La Cédille qui Sourit or ''The
Cedilla A cedilla ( ; from Spanish) or cedille (from French , ) is a hook or tail ( ¸ ) added under certain letters as a diacritical mark to modify their pronunciation. In Catalan, French, and Portuguese (called cedilha) it is used only under the ' ...
That Smiles'', was set up in
Villefranche-sur-Mer Villefranche-sur-Mer (, ; oc, Vilafranca de Mar ; it, Villafranca Marittima ) is a resort town in the Alpes-Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region on the French Riviera and is located south-west of the Principality of ...
, France, by
Robert Filliou Robert Filliou (17 January 1926 – 2 December 1987) was a French artist associated with Fluxus, who produced works as a filmmaker, "action poet," sculptor, and happenings maestro. Life In 1943, Filliou became a member of the French Communi ...
and George Brecht, 1965–1968. Intended as an 'International Centre of Permanent Creation', the shop sold Fluxkits and other small wares as well as housing a 'non-school', boasting the motto "A carefree exchange of information and experience. No students, no teachers. Perfect licence, at times to listen at times to talk." In 1966, Maciunas, Watts and others took advantage of new legislation drafted to regenerate the area of Manhattan known as 'Hell's Hundred Acres', soon to become rebranded as
SoHo Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was develop ...
, allowing artists to buy live/work spaces in an area that had been blighted due to a proposed 18-lane expressway along
Broome Street Broome Street is an east–west street in Lower Manhattan. It runs nearly the full width of Manhattan island, from Hudson Street in the west to Lewis Street in the east, near the entrance to the Williamsburg Bridge. The street is interrupted in ...
. Led by Maciunas, plans were laid to start a series of real-estate developments in the area, designed to create an artists' community within a few streets of the FluxShop on Canal Street.
'Maciunas wanted to establish collective workshops, food-buying cooperatives and theaters to link the strengths of various media together and bridge the gap between the artist community and the surrounding society'
The first warehouse, intended to house Maciunas, Watts, Christo & Jeanne-Claude, Jonas Mekas, La Monte Young and others, was located on Greene Street. Likening these communities to the soviet
Kolkhoz A kolkhoz ( rus, колхо́з, a=ru-kolkhoz.ogg, p=kɐlˈxos) was a form of collective farm in the Soviet Union. Kolkhozes existed along with state farms or sovkhoz., a contraction of советское хозяйство, soviet ownership or ...
s, Maciunas didn't hesitate to adopt the title 'Chairman of Bldg. Co-Op' without first registering an office or becoming a member of the New York State Association of Realtors. FluxHousing Co-Operatives continued to redevelop the area over the next decade, and were widened to include plans to set up a ''FluxIsland''- a suitable island was located near Antigua, but the money to buy and develop it remained unforthcoming- and finally a performance arts centre called the ''FluxFarm'' established in New Marlborough, Massachusetts. The plans were continually dogged by financial problems, constant run-ins with the New York authorities, and eventually resulted, on 8 November 1975, in Maciunas being severely beaten by thugs sent by an unpaid electrical contractor.


End

It is arguably said that Fluxus came to an end when its founder and leader George Maciunas died in 1978 from complications due to pancreatic cancer. Maciunas' funeral was held in typical Fluxus style where they dubbed the funeral "Fluxfeast and Wake", ate foods that were only black, white, or purple. Maciunas left behind his thoughts on Fluxus in a series of important video conversations called ''Interview With George Maciunas'' with Fluxus artist Larry Miller, which has been screened internationally and translated into numerous languages. Over the past 30 years, Miller has shot and collected Fluxus related materials including tapes on Joe Jones, Carolee Schneemann, Ben Vautier, Dick Higgins, and Alison Knowles, in addition to the 1978 Maciunas interview.


Since 1978

Maciunas moved to the Berkshire Mountains in Western Massachusetts in the late 1970s. Two decades earlier, after collecting paintings, the Boston art collector Jean Brown, and her late husband Leonard Brown, began to shift their focus to Dadaist and Surrealist art, manifestoes and periodicals. In 1971, after Mr. Brown's death, Mrs. Brown moved to
Tyringham Tyringham (/ˈtiːrɪŋəm/) is a village in the unitary authority area of the City of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. It is located about a mile and a half north of Newport Pagnell. The village name is an Old English language word, and ...
, and expanded into areas adjacent to Fluxus, including artists' books, concrete poetry, happenings, mail art and performance art. Maciunas helped turn her home, originally a Shaker seed house, into an important center for both Fluxus artists and scholars, with Mrs. Brown alternately cooking meals and showing guests her collection. Activities centered on a large archive room on the second floor built by Maciunas, who settled in nearby Great Barrington, where it was discovered that Maciunas developed cancer of the pancreas and liver in 1977. Three months before his death, he married his friend and companion, the poet Billie Hutching. After a legal wedding in Lee, Massachusetts, the couple performed a "Fluxwedding" in a friend's loft in SoHo, 25 February 1978. The bride and groom traded clothing. Maciunas died on 9 May 1978 in a hospital in Boston. After the death of George Maciunas a rift opened in Fluxus between a few collectors and curators who placed Fluxus as an art movement in a specific time frame (1962 to 1978), and the artists themselves, many of whom continued to see Fluxus as a living entity held together by its core values and world view. Different theorists and historians adopted each of these views. Fluxus is therefore referred to variously in the past or the present tense. While the definition of Fluxus was always a subject of controversy, the question is now significantly more complex due to the fact that many of the original artists who were still living when Maciunas died are now dead themselves. Some have argued that the unique control that curator Jon Hendricks holds over a major historical Fluxus collection (the Gilbert and Lila Silverman collection) has enabled him to influence, through the numerous books and catalogues subsidized by the collection, the view that Fluxus died with Maciunas. Hendricks argues that Fluxus was a historical movement that occurred at a particular time, asserting that such central Fluxus artists as Dick Higgins and Nam June Paik could no longer label themselves as active Fluxus artists after 1978, and that contemporary artists influenced by Fluxus cannot lay claim to be Fluxus artists. The
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
makes the same claim dating the movement to the 1960s and 1970s. However, the influence of Fluxus continues today in
multi-media Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradition ...
digital art Digital art refers to any artistic work or practice that uses digital technology as part of the creative or presentation process, or more specifically computational art that uses and engages with digital media. Since the 1960s, various names ...
performances. In September, 2011 Other Minds presented a performance at the SOMArts building in San Francisco to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Fluxus. The performance was curated by
Adam Fong Adam Fong (born June 21, 1980) is an American composer, performer and producer active in the San Francisco Bay area. He studied English and Music at Stanford University earning an M.A. in 2004. He then completed an M.F.A. in media studies a ...
who was also one of the performers along with
Yoshi Wada Yoshimasa "Yoshi" Wada (11 November 1943 – 18 May 2021) was a Japanese sound art installation artist and Contemporary classical music, new music musician who lived in New York City and then San Francisco, California. Life Born in Japan, afte ...
,
Alison Knowles Alison Knowles (born 1933) is an American visual artist known for her installations, performances, soundworks, and publications. Knowles was a founding member of the Fluxus movement, an international network of artists who aspired to merge diffe ...
,
Hannah Higgins Hannah B. Higgins (born 1964) is an American writer and academic living in Chicago, Illinois. Higgins's research examines various post-conceptual art historical subjects (visual, musical, computational and material) in terms of two philosophicall ...
,
Luciano Chessa Luciano Chessa (, born January 12, 1971, in Sassari, Italy) is a musician, performance/visual/installation artist, and musicologist. As a composer, conductor, pianist, and musical saw / Vietnamese dan bau soloist, Luciano Chessa has been act ...
and Adam Overton. Others, including Hannah Higgins, daughter of fluxus artists
Alison Knowles Alison Knowles (born 1933) is an American visual artist known for her installations, performances, soundworks, and publications. Knowles was a founding member of the Fluxus movement, an international network of artists who aspired to merge diffe ...
and
Dick Higgins Dick Higgins (15 March 1938 – 25 October 1998) was an American artist, composer, art theorist, poet, publisher, printmaker, and a co-founder of the Fluxus international artistic movement (and community). Inspired by John Cage, Higgins was a ...
, assert that although Maciunas was a key participant, there were many more, including Fluxus co-founder Higgins, who continued to work within Fluxus after the death of Maciunas. The rise of the Internet in the 1990s enabled a vibrant post-Fluxus community to emerge online. After some of the original Fluxus artists from the 1960s and 1970s including Higgins, created online communities such as the Fluxlist, following their departure, younger artists, writers, musicians, and performers have attempted to continue their work in
cyberspace Cyberspace is a concept describing a widespread interconnected digital technology. "The expression dates back from the first decade of the diffusion of the internet. It refers to the online world as a world 'apart', as distinct from everyday rea ...
. Many of the original Fluxus artists still working enjoy homages by younger Fluxus-influenced artists who stage events to commemorate Fluxus, but discourage the use of the "Fluxus" label by younger artists. In 2018 the
Los Angeles Philharmonic The Los Angeles Philharmonic, commonly referred to as the LA Phil, is an American orchestra based in Los Angeles, California. It has a regular season of concerts from October through June at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and a summer season at th ...
in its ''Fluxus Festival'' presented a fluxus performance incorporating John Cage's "Europeras 1 and 2" directed by
Yuval Sharon Yuval Sharon is an American opera and theater director from Naperville, Illinois, based in Los Angeles. In 2017, he won the MacArthur Genius Grant. Early life and education Sharon was born in 1979 in Chicago to two Israeli parents. He earned a B ...
. Fluxus artists continue to perform today on a smaller scale.


Influences

An immediate predecessor of Fluxus, according to Maciunas, was the Gutai group which promoted art as an anti-academic, psychophysical experience, an "art of matter as it is" as explained by Shiraga Kazuo in 1956. Gutai became connected with a sort of artistic mass-production, anticipating Fluxus's trademark, i.e., ambiguity between the cultivated and the trivial, between high and low. Indeed, avant-garde art in Japan tended toward informal rather than conceptual elements, radically opposing the extreme formality and symbolism found in Japanese art. In the 1950s New York music scene there could be discerned many issues related to the post-war disenchantment experienced by many throughout the developed world. Such disillusionment in itself presented a case for commitment to Buddhism and Zen in everyday matters such as mental attitude, meditation, and approach to food and body care. It was also felt, however, that there was a general need for a more radical artistic sensibility. The themes of decay and of the inadequacy of the idea of modernity in artistic fields were adopted, partly from Duchamp and Dada and partly from consciousness of the uneasiness of living in contemporary society. It is said that Fluxus challenged notions of representation, offering instead simple presentation. This, in fact, corresponds to a major difference between Western and Japanese art. Another important Fluxus characteristic was the elimination of perceived boundaries between art and life, a very prominent trend in post war art. This was exemplified by the work and writings of Josheph Beuys who stated, "every man is an artist." Fluxus's approach was an everyday, "economic" one as seen in the production of small objects made of paper and plastic. Again, this strongly corresponds with some of the fundamental characteristics of Japanese culture, i.e., the high artistic value of everyday acts and objects and the aesthetic appreciation of frugality. This also links with Japanese art, and the concept of shibumi, which may involve incompleteness, and supports the appreciation of bare objects, emphasizing subtlety rather than overtness. The renowned Japanese aesthetics scholar Onishi Yoshinori called the essence of Japanese art pantonomic because of the consciousness of no distinction between nature, art and life. Art is the way to approach life and nature/reality corresponding to actual existence.


Fluxus art

Fluxus encouraged a "
do-it-yourself "Do it yourself" ("DIY") is the method of building, modifying, or repairing things by oneself without the direct aid of professionals or certified experts. Academic research has described DIY as behaviors where "individuals use raw and semi ...
" aesthetic, and valued simplicity over complexity. Like
Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 192 ...
before it, Fluxus included a strong current of anti-commercialism and an
anti-art Anti-art is a loosely used term applied to an array of concepts and attitudes that reject prior definitions of art and question art in general. Somewhat paradoxically, anti-art tends to conduct this questioning and rejection from the vantage poi ...
sensibility, disparaging the conventional market-driven art world in favor of an artist-centered creative practice. As Fluxus artist
Robert Filliou Robert Filliou (17 January 1926 – 2 December 1987) was a French artist associated with Fluxus, who produced works as a filmmaker, "action poet," sculptor, and happenings maestro. Life In 1943, Filliou became a member of the French Communi ...
wrote, however, Fluxus differed from Dada in its richer set of aspirations, and the positive social and communitarian aspirations of Fluxus far outweighed the anti-art tendency that also marked the group. Among its early associates were
Joseph Beuys Joseph Heinrich Beuys ( , ; 12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism, sociology, and anthroposophy. He was a founder of a provocative art mov ...
,
Dick Higgins Dick Higgins (15 March 1938 – 25 October 1998) was an American artist, composer, art theorist, poet, publisher, printmaker, and a co-founder of the Fluxus international artistic movement (and community). Inspired by John Cage, Higgins was a ...
,
Davi Det Hompson Davi Det Hompson (1939–1996), also known as David E. Thompson, born in Sharon, Pennsylvania, and raised in Warren, Ohio, was a Fluxus book artist, concrete poet, creator of mail art, sculptor and painter living and working in Richmond, Virginia. ...
,
Nam June Paik Nam June Paik (; July 20, 1932 – January 29, 2006) was a Korean American artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the founder of video art. He is credited with the first use (1974) of the term "electronic super hi ...
,
Wolf Vostell Wolf Vostell (14 October 1932 – 3 April 1998) was a German painter and sculptor, considered one of the early adopters of video art and installation art and pioneer of Happenings and Fluxus. Techniques such as blurring and Dé-coll/age are ch ...
,
La Monte Young La Monte Thornton Young (born October 14, 1935) is an American composer, musician, and performance artist recognized as one of the first American minimalist composers and a central figure in Fluxus and post-war avant-garde music. He is best kno ...
,
Joseph Byrd Joseph Hunter Byrd, Jr. (born December 19, 1937) is an American composer, musician and academic. After first becoming known as an experimental composer in New York City and Los Angeles in the early and mid-1960s, he became the leader of The Un ...
,
Al Hansen Alfred Earl "Al" Hansen (5 October 1927 – 20 June 1995) was an American artist. He was a member of Fluxus, a movement that originated on an artists' collective around George Maciunas. He was the father of Andy Warhol protégé Bibbe Hanse ...
and Yoko Ono who explored media ranging from performance art to poetry to experimental music to film. Taking 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 1970s (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 Video art is an art form which relies on using video technology as a visual and audio medium. Video art emerged during the late 1960s as new consumer video technology such as video tape recorders became available outside corporate broadcasting ...
of Nam June Paik and
Charlotte Moorman Madeline Charlotte Moorman (November 18, 1933 – November 8, 1991) was an American cellist, performance artist, and advocate for avant-garde music. Referred to as the "Jeanne d'Arc of new music", she was the founder of the Annual Avant Garde Fest ...
and the performance art of Joseph Beuys and Wolf Vostell. During the early years of Fluxus, the often playful style of the Fluxus artists resulted in them being considered by some to be little more than a group of
prank A practical joke, or prank, is a mischievous trick played on someone, generally causing the victim to experience embarrassment, perplexity, confusion, or discomfort.Marsh, Moira. 2015. ''Practically Joking''. Logan: Utah State University Press. ...
sters. Fluxus has also been compared to
Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 192 ...
and aspects of Pop Art and is seen as the starting point of
mail art Mail art, also known as postal art and correspondence art, is an artistic movement centered on sending small-scale works through the postal service. It initially developed out of what eventually became Ray Johnson's New York Correspondence Schoo ...
and no wave artists. Artists from succeeding generations such as Mark Bloch do not try to characterize themselves as Fluxus but create spinoffs such as Fluxpan or Jung Fluxus as a way of continuing some of the Fluxus ideas in a 21st-century, post-
mail art Mail art, also known as postal art and correspondence art, is an artistic movement centered on sending small-scale works through the postal service. It initially developed out of what eventually became Ray Johnson's New York Correspondence Schoo ...
context. In terms of an artistic approach, Fluxus artists preferred to work with whatever materials were at hand, and either created their own work or collaborated in the creation process with their colleagues. Outsourcing part of the creative process to commercial fabricators was not usually part of Fluxus practice. Maciunas personally hand-assembled many of the Fluxus multiples and editions. While Maciunas assembled many objects by hand, he designed and intended them for mass production.Maciunas on Fluxus
Retrieved 5 September 2010
Where multiple publishers produced signed, numbered objects in limited editions intended for sale at high prices, Maciunas produced open editions at low prices. Several other Fluxus publishers produced different kinds of Fluxus editions. The best known of these was the
Something Else Press Something Else Press was founded by Dick Higgins in 1963. It published many important Intermedia texts and artworks by such Fluxus artists as Higgins, Ray Johnson, Alison Knowles, Allan Kaprow, George Brecht, Daniel Spoerri, Robert Filliou, Al ...
, established by Dick Higgins, probably the largest and most extensive Fluxus publisher, producing books in editions that ran from 1,500 copies to as many as 5,000 copies, all available at standard bookstore prices. Higgins created the term "
intermedia Intermedia is an art theory term coined in the mid-1960s by Fluxus artist Dick Higgins to describe various interdisciplinarity art activities that occur between genres, beginning in the 1960s. It was also used by John Brockman to refer to works ...
" in a 1966 essay. The art forms most closely associated with Fluxus are event scores and Fluxus boxes. Fluxus boxes (sometimes called Fluxkits or Fluxboxes) originated with George Maciunas who would gather collections of printed cards, games, and ideas, organizing them in small plastic or wooden boxes.


Event score

An event score, such as
George Brecht George Brecht (August 27, 1926 – December 5, 2008), born George Ellis MacDiarmid, was an American conceptual artist and avant-garde composer, as well as a professional chemist who worked as a consultant for companies including Pfizer, Johnson ...
's "Drip Music", is essentially a
performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...
script that is usually only a few lines long and consists of descriptions of actions to be performed rather than dialogue. Fluxus artists differentiate event scores from "
happening A happening is a performance, event, or situation art, usually as performance art. The term was first used by Allan Kaprow during the 1950s to describe a range of art-related events. History Origins Allan Kaprow first coined the term "happen ...
s". Whereas happenings were sometimes complicated, lengthy performances meant to blur the lines between performer and audience, performance and reality, event performances were usually brief and simple. The event performances sought to elevate the banal, to be mindful of the mundane, and to frustrate the
high culture High culture is a subculture that emphasizes and encompasses the cultural objects of aesthetic value, which a society collectively esteem as exemplary art, and the intellectual works of philosophy, history, art, and literature that a society cons ...
of academic and market-driven music and art. The idea of the event began in
Henry Cowell Henry Dixon Cowell (; March 11, 1897 – December 10, 1965) was an American composer, writer, pianist, publisher and teacher. Marchioni, Tonimarie (2012)"Henry Cowell: A Life Stranger Than Fiction" ''The Juilliard Journal''. Retrieved 19 June 202 ...
's philosophy of music. Cowell, a teacher to John Cage and later to Dick Higgins, coined the term that Higgins and others later applied to short, terse descriptions of performable work. The term "score" is used in exactly the sense that one uses the term to describe a music score: a series of notes that allow anyone to perform the work, an idea linked both to what
Nam June Paik Nam June Paik (; July 20, 1932 – January 29, 2006) was a Korean American artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the founder of video art. He is credited with the first use (1974) of the term "electronic super hi ...
labeled the "do it yourself" approach and to what
Ken Friedman Ken Friedman (born September 19, 1949 in New London, Connecticut) is a design researcher. He was a member of Fluxus, an international laboratory for experimental art, architecture, design, and music. Friedman joined Fluxus in 1966 as the youngest m ...
termed "musicality." While much is made of the do it yourself approach to art, it is vital to recognize that this idea emerges in music, and such important Fluxus artists as Paik, Higgins, or Corner began as composers, bringing to art the idea that each person can create the work by "doing it." This is what Friedman meant by musicality, extending the idea more radically to conclude that anyone can create work of any kind from a score, acknowledging the composer as the originator of the work while realizing the work freely and even interpreting it in far different ways from those the original composer might have done. Other creative forms that have been adopted by Fluxus practitioners include
collage Collage (, from the french: coller, "to glue" or "to stick together";) is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. ...
,
sound art Sound art is an artistic activity in which sound is utilized as a primary medium or material. Like many genres of contemporary art, sound art may be interdisciplinary in nature, or be used in hybrid forms. According to Brandon LaBelle, sound art ...
, music, video, and poetry—especially
visual poetry Literary theorists have identified visual poetry as a development of concrete poetry but with the characteristics of intermedia in which non-representational language and visual elements predominate. Differentiation from concrete poetry As the li ...
and
concrete poetry Concrete poetry is an arrangement of linguistic elements in which the typographical effect is more important in conveying meaning than verbal significance. It is sometimes referred to as visual poetry, a term that has now developed a distinct mea ...
.


Use of shock

Nam June Paik Nam June Paik (; July 20, 1932 – January 29, 2006) was a Korean American artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the founder of video art. He is credited with the first use (1974) of the term "electronic super hi ...
and his peers in the Fluxus art movement thoroughly understood the impact and importance of shock on the viewer. Fluxus artists believed that shock not only makes the viewer question their own reasoning, but is a means to awaken the viewer, "...from a perceptive lethargy furthered by habit." Paik himself described the shock factor in his Fluxus work: "People who come to my concerts or see my objects need to be transferred into another state of consciousness. They have to be high. And in order to put them into this state of highness, a little shock is required... Anyone who came to my exhibition saw the head and was high." Paik's "head" was that of a real cow displayed at the entrance to his exhibition, Exposition of Music—Electronic Television, located in the Galerie Parnass, Wuppertal, Germany in 1963.


Artistic philosophies

Fluxus is similar in spirit to the earlier art movement of
Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 192 ...
, emphasizing the concept of
anti-art Anti-art is a loosely used term applied to an array of concepts and attitudes that reject prior definitions of art and question art in general. Somewhat paradoxically, anti-art tends to conduct this questioning and rejection from the vantage poi ...
and taking jabs at the seriousness of modern art. Fluxus artists used their minimal performances to highlight their perceived connections between everyday objects and art, similarly to Duchamp in pieces such as ''
Fountain A fountain, from the Latin "fons" (genitive "fontis"), meaning source or Spring (hydrology), spring, is a decorative reservoir used for discharging water. It is also a structure that jets water into the air for a decorative or dramatic effect. ...
''. Fluxus art was often presented in "events", which Fluxus member
George Brecht George Brecht (August 27, 1926 – December 5, 2008), born George Ellis MacDiarmid, was an American conceptual artist and avant-garde composer, as well as a professional chemist who worked as a consultant for companies including Pfizer, Johnson ...
defined as "the smallest unit of a situation." The events consisted of a minimal instruction, opening the events to accidents and other unintended effects. Also contributing to the randomness of events was the integration of audience members into the performances, realizing Duchamp's notion of the viewer completing the art work. The Fluxus artistic philosophy has been defined as a synthesis of four key factors that define the majority of Fluxus work: # Fluxus is an attitude. It is not a movement or a style. # Fluxus is intermedia.Higgins 1966, Fluxus creators like to see what happens when different media intersect. They use found and everyday objects, sounds, images, and texts to create new combinations of objects, sounds, images, and texts. # Fluxus works are simple. The art is small, the texts are short, and the performances are brief. # Fluxus is fun. Humor has always been an important element in Fluxus.


Late criticism

There is a complexity in adequately charting a unified history of Fluxus. In ''Fluxus: A brief History and Other Fictions'', Owen Smith concedes that, with the emergence of new material published about Fluxus and its expansion into the present, its history must remain open.O'neill, Rosemary. ''In the Spirit of Fluxus''. Art Journal 53.1 (1994): 90–93. Web. The resistance to being pigeonholed, and with the absence of a stable identity, Fluxus opened up to wide participation but also, from what would appear in history, closed off that possibility. Maciunas made frequent acts of excommunication between 1962 and 1978 which destabilized the collective. Kristine Stiles argues in one of her essays that the essence of Fluxus is "performative", while recently she feels that essence has been "eroded or threatened". Fluxus instead moved towards favoring the objects of publication, Stiles asserts: "Care must be taken that Fluxus is not transformed historically from a radical process and presentational art into a tradition static and representational art." With no leadership, no identifiable guidelines, no real collective strategy, no homogeneity in terms of practices, Fluxus cannot be handled through traditional critical tools. Fluxus is an indicator of this confusion. Fluxus therefore is nearly always a discourse on the failure of discourse.


Fluxus artists

Fluxus artists shared several characteristics including wit and "childlikeness", though they lacked a consistent identity as an artistic community. This vague self-identification allowed the group to include a variety of artists, including a large number of women. The possibility that Fluxus had more female members than any Western art group up to that point in history is particularly significant because Fluxus came on the heels of the white male-dominated
abstract expressionism Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...
movement. However, despite the designed open-endedness of Fluxus, Maciunas insisted on maintaining unity in the collective. Because of this, Maciunas was accused of expelling certain members for deviating from what he perceived as the goals of Fluxus. Many artists, writers, and composers have been associated with Fluxus over the years, including: *
Eric Andersen Eric Andersen (born February 14, 1943) is an American folk music singer-songwriter, who has written songs recorded by Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, Linda Ronstadt, the Grateful Dead and many others. Early in his career, in the 1960s, he ...
(born 1940) *
John Armleder John Armleder (born 1948, in Geneva) is a Swiss performance artist, painter, sculptor, critic, and curator. His work is based on his involvement with Fluxus in the 1960s and 1970s, when he created performance art pieces, installations and collectiv ...
(born 1948) *
Ay-O Takao Iijima (born May 19, 1931), better known by his art name Ay-O, (靉嘔 ''Ai Ō''), is a Japanese avant-garde visual and performance artist who has been associated with Fluxus since its international beginnings in the 1960s. Biography Ear ...
(born 1931) *
Joseph Beuys Joseph Heinrich Beuys ( , ; 12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism, sociology, and anthroposophy. He was a founder of a provocative art mov ...
(1921–1986) *
Bazon Brock Bazon Brock (born Jürgen Johannes Hermann Brock, 2 June 1936) is a German art theorist and critic, multi-media generalist and artist. He is considered a member of Fluxus. He was a professor of aesthetics at the Hochschule für bildende Künste ...
(born 1936) *
Joseph Byrd Joseph Hunter Byrd, Jr. (born December 19, 1937) is an American composer, musician and academic. After first becoming known as an experimental composer in New York City and Los Angeles in the early and mid-1960s, he became the leader of The Un ...
(born 1937) *
John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading fi ...
(1912–1992) *
George Brecht George Brecht (August 27, 1926 – December 5, 2008), born George Ellis MacDiarmid, was an American conceptual artist and avant-garde composer, as well as a professional chemist who worked as a consultant for companies including Pfizer, Johnson ...
(1926–2008) *
Giuseppe Chiari Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari (10 March 1654 – 8 September 1727), also known simply as ''Giuseppe Chiari'', was an Italian painter of the late-Baroque period, active mostly in Rome. Biography Born in Rome, he was one of the main assistants, alon ...
(1926–2007) *
Henning Christiansen Henning Christiansen (28 May 1932 in Copenhagen – 10 December 2008) was a Danish composer and an active member of the Fluxus-movement. He worked with artists such as Joseph Beuys, Nam June Paik, Bazon Brock and Wolf Vostell as well as with his w ...
(1932–2008) *
Philip Corner Philip Lionel Corner (born April 10, 1933; name sometimes given as Phil Corner) is an American composer, trombonist, alphornist, vocalist, pianist, music theorist, music educator, and visual artist. Biography After The High School of Music & Ar ...
(born 1933) * Jean Dupuy (1925–2021) *
Öyvind Fahlström Öyvind Axel Christian Fahlström (December 28, 1928 – November 9, 1976) was a Swedish multimedia artist. Biography Fahlström was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, as the only child to Frithjof Fahlström and Karin Fahlström. In July 1939 he was s ...
(1928–1976) *
Robert Filliou Robert Filliou (17 January 1926 – 2 December 1987) was a French artist associated with Fluxus, who produced works as a filmmaker, "action poet," sculptor, and happenings maestro. Life In 1943, Filliou became a member of the French Communi ...
(1926–1987) *
Simone Forti Simone Forti (born March 25, 1935), is an American Italian Postmodern artist, dancer, choreographer, and writer. Since the 1950s, Forti has exhibited, performed, and taught workshops all over the world. Her innovations in Postmodern dance, inclu ...
(born 1935) *
Henry Flynt Henry Flynt (born 1940 in Greensboro, North Carolina) is an American philosopher, musician, writer, activist, and artist connected to the 1960s New York avant-garde. He coined the term "concept art" in the early 1960s, during which time he was a ...
(born 1940) *
Ken Friedman Ken Friedman (born September 19, 1949 in New London, Connecticut) is a design researcher. He was a member of Fluxus, an international laboratory for experimental art, architecture, design, and music. Friedman joined Fluxus in 1966 as the youngest m ...
(born 1949) *
Al Hansen Alfred Earl "Al" Hansen (5 October 1927 – 20 June 1995) was an American artist. He was a member of Fluxus, a movement that originated on an artists' collective around George Maciunas. He was the father of Andy Warhol protégé Bibbe Hanse ...
(1927–1995) *
Geoffrey Hendricks Geoffrey Hendricks (July 30, 1931 in Littleton, New Hampshire – May 12, 2018) was an American artist associated with Fluxus since the mid 1960s. He was professor emeritus of art at Rutgers University, where he taught from 1956 to 2003 and was ass ...
(1931–2018) * Bici Hendricks (born 1932) *
Dick Higgins Dick Higgins (15 March 1938 – 25 October 1998) was an American artist, composer, art theorist, poet, publisher, printmaker, and a co-founder of the Fluxus international artistic movement (and community). Inspired by John Cage, Higgins was a ...
(1938–1998) *
Davi Det Hompson Davi Det Hompson (1939–1996), also known as David E. Thompson, born in Sharon, Pennsylvania, and raised in Warren, Ohio, was a Fluxus book artist, concrete poet, creator of mail art, sculptor and painter living and working in Richmond, Virginia. ...
(1939–1996) * Alice Hutchins (1916–2009) *
Toshi Ichiyanagi was a Japanese avant-garde composer and pianist. One of the leading composers in Japan during the postwar era, Ichiyanagi worked in a range of genres, composing Western-style operas and orchestral and chamber works, as well as compositions using ...
(born 1933) *
Terry Jennings Terry Jennings (19 July 1940 – 11 December 1981) was an American minimalist composer and performer. Early life in California Terry Jennings was born in Eagle Rock, Los Angeles, California, in 1940. Coming from a background in jazz, he pla ...
(1940–1981) *
Ray Johnson Raymond Edward "Ray" Johnson (October 16, 1927 – January 13, 1995) was an American artist. Known primarily as a collagist and correspondence artist, he was a seminal figure in the history of Neo-Dada and early Pop art and was described as
(1927–1995) * Joe Jones (1934–1993) *
Allan Kaprow Allan Kaprow (August 23, 1927 – April 5, 2006) was an American painter, assemblagist and a pioneer in establishing the concepts of performance art. He helped to develop the "Environment" and "Happening" in the late 1950s and 1960s, as well as ...
(1927–2006) *
Bengt af Klintberg Bengt af Klintberg (Bengt Knut Erik af Klintberg) (b. 25 December 1938 in Stockholm) is a Sweden, Swedish folklorist, ethnologist, and artist who is known for his work on modern urban legends. His work reached a large audience with such books as '' ...
(born 1938) *
Milan Knížák Milan Knížák (; born 19 April 1940) is a Czech performance artist, sculptor, noise musician, installation artist, political dissident, graphic artist, art theorist and pedagogue of art associated with Fluxus. Biography Childhood and early ...
(born 1940) *
Alison Knowles Alison Knowles (born 1933) is an American visual artist known for her installations, performances, soundworks, and publications. Knowles was a founding member of the Fluxus movement, an international network of artists who aspired to merge diffe ...
(born 1933) *
Arthur Köpcke Arthur Köpcke (Born 1928 in Hamburg - Died 1977 in Copenhagen) (aka Arthur Køpcke), was a German-born artist known for his contributions to the first generation of Fluxus. Köpcke’s work includes paintings, scrolls, literary works, objects, co ...
(1928–1977) *
Takehisa Kosugi was a Japanese composer, violinist and artist associated with the Fluxus movement. Biography Kosugi studied musicology at the Tokyo University of the Arts and graduated in 1962. He first became drawn to music listening to his father play har ...
(1938–2018) *
Philip Krumm Philip Krumm (born April 7, 1941 in Baltimore, Maryland) is an American composer who was "a pioneer of modal, repetitive pattern music".88 Keys to Freedom: Segues Through the History of American Piano Music(Accessed June 13, 2006) Krumm studied o ...
(born 1941) *
Shigeko Kubota (2 August 1937 – 23 July 2015) was a Japanese video artist, sculptor and avant-garde performance artist, who mostly lived in New York City. She was one of the first artists to adopt the portable video camera Sony Portapak in 1970, likening it ...
(1937–2015) * George Landow (1944–2011) *
Vytautas Landsbergis Vytautas Landsbergis (born 18 October 1932) is a Lithuanian politician and former Member of the European Parliament. He was the first Speaker of Reconstituent Seimas of Lithuania after its independence declaration from the Soviet Union. He has ...
(born 1932) *
John Lennon John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 19408 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who achieved worldwide fame as founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of ...
(1940–1980) *
Jackson Mac Low Jackson Mac Low (1922–2004) was an American poet, performance artist, composer and playwright, known to most readers of poetry as a practioneer of systematic chance operations and other non-intentional compositional methods in his work, whi ...
(1922–2004) *
Richard Maxfield Richard Vance Maxfield (February 2, 1927 – June 27, 1969) was a composer of instrumental, electro-acoustic, and electronic music. Born in Seattle, Maxfield studied at Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley (with Roger Sessions ...
(1927–1969) *
George Maciunas George Maciunas (; lt, Jurgis Mačiūnas; November 8, 1931 – May 9, 1978) was a Lithuanian American artist, born in Kaunas. A founding member and the central coordinator of Fluxus, an international community of artists, architects, composers ...
(1931–1978) *
Jonas Mekas Jonas Mekas (; December 24, 1922 – January 23, 2019) was a Lithuanian-American filmmaker, poet, and artist who has been called "the godfather of American avant-garde cinema". Mekas' work has been exhibited in museums and at festivals worldwi ...
(1922–2019) *
Gustav Metzger Gustav Metzger (10 April 1926, Nuremberg – 1 March 2017, London) was a German artist and political activist who developed the concept of Auto-Destructive Art and the Art Strike. Together with John Sharkey, he initiated the Destruction in Ar ...
(1926–2017) * Larry Miller (born 1944) *
Kate Millett Katherine Murray Millett (September 14, 1934 – September 6, 2017) was an American feminist writer, educator, artist, and activist. She attended Oxford University and was the first American woman to be awarded a degree with first-class honor ...
(1934–2017) *
Charlotte Moorman Madeline Charlotte Moorman (November 18, 1933 – November 8, 1991) was an American cellist, performance artist, and advocate for avant-garde music. Referred to as the "Jeanne d'Arc of new music", she was the founder of the Annual Avant Garde Fest ...
(1933–1991) *
Maurizio Nannucci Maurizio Nannucci (born 1939, in Florence, Italy) is an Italian contemporary artist. Lives and works in Florence and South Baden, Germany. Nannucci's work includes: photography, video, neon installations, sound installation, artist's books, and edi ...
(born 1939) *
Louise Odes Neaderland Louise Odes Neaderland (born August 23, 1932) is an American photographer, printmaker, book artist and founder of the International Society of Copier Artists (I.S.C.A.) and the ''I.S.C.A. Quarterly'', a collaborative mail, book art, and copy art ...
(born 1932) *
Yoko Ono Yoko Ono ( ; ja, 小野 洋子, Ono Yōko, usually spelled in katakana ; born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art and filmmaking. Ono grew up i ...
(born 1933) *
Robin Page Robin Page (2 November 1932 – 12 May 2015) was a British painter. He was one of the early members of the Fluxus art movement. Biography Page was born in England in 1932. His father, Peter Carter-Page, was a humorist and cartoonist who worked ...
(1932–2015) *
Nam June Paik Nam June Paik (; July 20, 1932 – January 29, 2006) was a Korean American artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the founder of video art. He is credited with the first use (1974) of the term "electronic super hi ...
(1932–2006) *
Ben Patterson Benjamin Patterson (May 29, 1934 – June 25, 2016) was an American musician, artist, and one of the founders of the Fluxus movement. Biography Benjamin Patterson was born in Pittsburgh on May 29, 1934. He attended the University of Michigan fr ...
(1934–2016) *
Terry Riley Terrence Mitchell "Terry" Riley (born June 24, 1935) is an American composer and performing musician best known as a pioneer of the minimalist school of composition. Influenced by jazz and Indian classical music, his music became notable for it ...
(born 1935) *
Dieter Roth Dieter Roth (April 21, 1930 – June 5, 1998) was a Swiss artist best known for his artist's books, editioned prints, sculptures, and works made of found materials, including rotting food stuffs. He was also known as Dieter Rot and Diter Rot. ...
(1930–1998) *
Takako Saito is a Japanese artist closely associated with Fluxus, the international collective of avant-garde artists that was active primarily in the 1960s and 1970s. Saito contributed a number of performances and artworks to the movement, which continu ...
(born 1929) *
Wim T. Schippers Willem Theodoor "Wim T." Schippers (; born 1 July 1942) is a Dutch artist, comedian, television director, and voice actor. During the 1960s, he worked mostly as a visual artist, associated with the international Fluxus-movement. As a television w ...
(born 1942) *
Tomas Schmit Tomas Schmit (born 13 July 1943 in Thier, now part of Wipperfürth, died 4 October 2006 in Berlin, Germany) was an artist and author associated with the Fluxus movement of the early 1960s.
(1943–2006) *
Carolee Schneemann Carolee Schneemann (October 12, 1939 – March 6, 2019) was an American visual experimental artist, known for her multi-media works on the body, narrative, sexuality and gender. She received a B.A. in poetry and philosophy from Bard College and ...
(1939–2019) *
Mieko Shiomi was a Japanese amateur photographer in Shōwa era Japan. Life Shiomi was born in Osaka, and graduated from Shimizudani Girls' High School in 1927 (Shōwa 2). Shiomi joined the Tampei Photography Club in 1948, and thereafter joined two other ...
(born 1938) *
Daniel Spoerri Daniel Spoerri (born 27 March 1930) is a Swiss artist and writer born in Romania. Spoerri is best known for his "snare-pictures," a type of assemblage or object art, in which he captures a group of objects, such as the remains of meals eaten by in ...
(born 1930) *
James Tenney James Tenney (August 10, 1934 – August 24, 2006) was an American composer and music theorist. He made significant early musical contributions to plunderphonics, sound synthesis, algorithmic composition, process music, spectral music, microtonal ...
(1934–2006) *
Yasunao Tone (b. 1935) is a multi-disciplinary artist born in Tokyo, Japan and working in New York City. He graduated from Chiba University in 1957 with a major in Japanese Literature. An important figure in postwar Japanese art during the sixties, he was acti ...
(born 1935) *
Ben Vautier Ben Vautier, also known simply as Ben (born 18 July 1935 in Naples, Italy), is a French artist. Vautier lives and works in Nice, where he ran a record shop called ''Magazin'' between 1958 and 1973. Biography Benjamin Vautier was born on 18 Ju ...
(born 1935) *
Wolf Vostell Wolf Vostell (14 October 1932 – 3 April 1998) was a German painter and sculptor, considered one of the early adopters of video art and installation art and pioneer of Happenings and Fluxus. Techniques such as blurring and Dé-coll/age are ch ...
(1932–1998) *
Yoshi Wada Yoshimasa "Yoshi" Wada (11 November 1943 – 18 May 2021) was a Japanese sound art installation artist and Contemporary classical music, new music musician who lived in New York City and then San Francisco, California. Life Born in Japan, afte ...
(1943–2021) *
Robert Watts Robert Watts (born 23 May 1938)Adam Pirani, ''Robert Watts: Secrets of "The Temple of Doom"'', Starlog #94, April 1985, pp 23–26,62. is a British retired film producer who is best known for his involvement with the '' Star Wars'' and '' India ...
(1923–1988) *
Chuck Welch Chuck Welch, also known as the CrackerJack Kid or Jack Kid, was born in Kearney, Nebraska in 1948. He wrote "Eternal Network: A Mail Art Anthology", with a foreword by Ken Friedman, which was published and edited by University of Calgary Press in ...
(born 1948) *
Emmett Williams Emmett Williams (4 April 1925 – 14 February 2007) was an American poet and visual artist. He was married to British visual artist Ann Noël. Williams was born in Greenville, South Carolina, grew up in Virginia, and lived in Europe from 1 ...
(1925–2007) *
La Monte Young La Monte Thornton Young (born October 14, 1935) is an American composer, musician, and performance artist recognized as one of the first American minimalist composers and a central figure in Fluxus and post-war avant-garde music. He is best kno ...
(born 1935)


Scholars, critics, and curators associated with Fluxus

*Simon Anderson (born 1954) * Jacquelynn Baas (born 1948) * Jean Brown (1911–1994) * Peter Frank (born 1950) *
Ken Friedman Ken Friedman (born September 19, 1949 in New London, Connecticut) is a design researcher. He was a member of Fluxus, an international laboratory for experimental art, architecture, design, and music. Friedman joined Fluxus in 1966 as the youngest m ...
(born 1949) * John Held Jr. (mailartist) (born 1947) *
Hannah Higgins Hannah B. Higgins (born 1964) is an American writer and academic living in Chicago, Illinois. Higgins's research examines various post-conceptual art historical subjects (visual, musical, computational and material) in terms of two philosophicall ...
(born 1964) *
Judith Hoffberg Judith Hoffberg (May 19, 1934 – January 16, 2009) was a librarian, archivist, lecturer, a curator and art writer, and editor and publisher of ''Umbrella'', a newsletter on artist's books, mail art, and Fluxus art. Biography Hoffberg receive ...
(1934–2009) *
Jill Johnston Jill Johnston (May 17, 1929 – September 18, 2010) was a British-born American feminist author and cultural critic who wrote '' Lesbian Nation'' in 1973 and was a longtime writer for ''The Village Voice''. She was also a leader of the lesbian ...
(1929–2010) *
Clive Phillpot Clive Phillpot (Born 1938) is a specialist on artists' books, essayist, art writer, curator, and a librarian. Phillpot started his library career at the Charing Cross Public Library in London. Career He is a former librarian at the Chelsea School ...
(born 1950) *
Kristine Stiles Kristine Stiles (born Kristine Elaine Dolan in Denver, Colorado, 1947) is the France Family Distinguished Professor of Art, Art History and Visual Studies at Duke University. She is an art historian, curator, and artist specializing in global cont ...
(born 1947) *
Knud Pedersen Knud Pedersen (26 December 1925, in Grenaa – 18 December 2014, in Gentofte) was a Danish artist and resistance leader. His career as a public figure started in 1942, when he and seven other young Danes founded the resistance group, ''Churchil ...
(1925–2014)


Major collections and archives

* Alternative Traditions in Contemporary Art, University Library and
University of Iowa Museum of Art The University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art is a visual arts institution that is part of the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. Since its inception, the museum has partnere ...
,
University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is org ...
, Iowa City, Iowa, USA * Archiv Sohm,
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart The Staatsgalerie Stuttgart (, "State Gallery") is an art museum in Stuttgart, Germany, it opened in 1843. In 1984, the opening of the Neue Staatsgalerie (''New State Gallery'') designed by James Stirling transformed the once provincial gallery ...
, Stuttgart, Germany * Archivio Conz, Verona, Italy * Artpool, Budapest, Hungary *
Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA, formerly abbreviated as BAM/PFA) are a combined art museum, repertory movie theater, and archive associated with the University of California, Berkeley. Lawrence Rinder was Director from ...
, Berkeley, California * Emily Harvey Foundation, New York City, and Venice, Italy * David Mayor/Fluxshoe/Beau Geste Press papers, Tate Gallery Archive, Tate Britain, London, England * , collection Ute and Michael Berger, Wiesbaden-Erbenheim, Germany * Fluxus Collection, Ken Friedman papers, Tate Gallery Archive, Tate Britain, London, England * Fluxus Collection, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA * Fondation du Doute * FONDAZIONE BONOTTO, Molvena, Vicenza, Italy * Franklin Furnace Archive, The Museum of Modern Art, New York City * George Maciunas Memorial Collection, The Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA * Gilbert and Lila Silverman, Fluxus Foundation, Detroit, Michigan, and New York City, USA * Museo Vostell Malpartida Cáceres, Spain * Museum Fluxus+ Potsdam, Germany
Jean Brown papers, 1916–1995
finding aid,
Getty Research Institute The Getty Research Institute (GRI), located at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California, is "dedicated to furthering knowledge and advancing understanding of the visual arts".
, Los Angeles * Sammlung Maria und Walter Schnepel, Bremen, Germany * Institute for the Arts & Science, University of California, Santa Cruz, USA * De Montfort University, Leicester, UK * TVF The Endless Story of FLUXUS, Gent, Belgium * Jonas Mekas Visual Arts Center,
Vilnius Vilnius ( , ; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the municipality of Vilnius). The population of Vilnius's functional urb ...
, Lithuania * The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Gift from the Gilbert and Lila Silverman Collection, Detroit, to American Friends of the Israel Museum


See also

*
Art intervention Art intervention is an interaction with a previously existing artwork, audience, venue/space or situation. It has the auspice of conceptual art and is commonly a form of performance art. It is associated with the Viennese Actionists, the Dada mov ...
*
Artist's book Artists' books (or book arts or book objects) are works of art that utilize the form of the book. They are often published in small editions, though they are sometimes produced as one-of-a-kind objects. Overview Artists' books have employed a ...
*
Body art Body art is art made on, with, or consisting of, the human body. Body art covers a wide spectrum including tattoos, body piercings, scarification, and body painting. Body art may include performance art, body art is likewise utilized for investiga ...
*
Fluxus at Rutgers University The mid-20th-century art movement Fluxus had a strong association with Rutgers University. History Allan Kaprow and Robert Watts, both key figures in the movement, originally met while they were students at Columbia University; though only togethe ...
*
Gutai group The was a Japanese avant-garde artist group founded in the Hanshin region by young artists under the leadership of the painter Jirō Yoshihara in Ashiya, Japan, in 1954. The group, today one of the most internationally-recognized instances of ...
* Ministry of Fluxus *
Xerox art Xerox art (sometimes, more generically, called copy art, electrostatic art, scanography or xerography) is an art form that began in the 1960s. Prints are created by putting objects on the glass, or platen, of a copying machine and by pressing "st ...


Selected bibliography

* Jürgen Becker, Wolf Vostell, ''Happenings, Fluxus, Pop Art, Nouveau Réalisme''. Eine Dokumentation. Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek 1965. * ''Happening & Fluxus''. Kölnischer Kunstverein, 1970. * Baas, Jacquelynn, Friedman, Ken ''Fluxus and the Essential Questions of Life''. Chicago and Hanover, NH: University of Chicago Press and Hood Museum of Art, 2011. . * Bernstein, Roslyn, and Shael Shapiro. ''Illegal Living: 80 Wooster Street and the Evolution of SoHo'' (Jonas Mekas Foundation), www.illegalliving.com , September 2010. * Block, René, ed. ''1962 Wiesbaden Fluxus 1982''. Wiesbaden: Harlekin Art, Museum Wiesbaden, and Nassauischer Kunstverein, 1982. * Clay, Steve, and Ken Friedman, eds. ''Intermedia, Fluxus and the Something Else Press: Selected Writings by Dick Higgins''. Catskill, New York: Siglio Press, 2018. . * ''Der Traum von Fluxus. George Maciunas: Eine Künstlerbiographie''.
Thomas Kellein Thomas Kellein (born 1955) is a German art historian; gallery director; author; and curator. He was the Director at Kunsthalle Basel between 1988 and 1995, and the Director of the Kunsthalle Bielefeld between 1996 and 2010. He was the Director of ...
, Walther König, 2007. . * Fluxus und Freunde: Sammlung Maria und Walter Schnepel, Katalog zur Ausstellung Neues Museum Weserburg Bremen; Fondazione Morra, Napoli; Kunst Museum Bonn 2002. * Friedman, Ken, ed
''The Fluxus Reader''
Chicester, West Sussex and New York: Academy Editions, 1998. * Gray, John. ''Action Art. A Bibliography of Artists' Performance from Futurism to Fluxus and Beyond''. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1993. * Haskell, Barbara. ''BLAM! The Explosion of Pop, Minimalism and Performance 1958–1964''. New York: W. W. Norton in association with the
Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...
, 1984. * Hansen, Al, and Beck Hansen. ''Playing with Matches''. RAM USA, 1998. * Hapgood, Susan, and Cornelia Lauf. ''FluxAttitudes''. Ghent: Imschoot Uitgevers, 1991. * Held, John Jr. ''Mail Art: an Annotated Bibliography''. Metuchen, New Jersey and London: Scarecrow Press, 1991. * Held, John Jr. ''Where the Secret is Hidden: Collected Essays'' Breda: TAM-Publications Netherlands, 2011. * Hendricks, Geoffrey, ed. ''Critical Mass, Happenings, Fluxus, Performance, Intermedia and Rutgers University 1958–1972''. Mason Gross Art Galleries, Rutgers, and Mead Art Gallery, Amherst, 2003. * Hendricks, Jon, ed. ''Fluxus, etc.: The Gilbert and Lila Silverman Collection''. Bloomfield Hills, Michigan: Cranbrook Museum of Art, 1982. * Higgins, Hannah. ''Fluxus Experience''. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. * Janssen, Ruud. ''Mail-Interviews Part 1 Interviews with Mail-Art and Fluxus Artists''. Breda: TAM-Publications, Netherlands 2008. * Kellein, Thomas. ''Fluxus''. London and New York: Thames & Hudson, 1995. * Milman, Estera, ed. "Fluxus: A Conceptual Country", ''Visible Language'' pecial Issue vol. 26, nos. 1/2, Providence: Rhode Island School of Design, 1992. * ''Fluxus y Di Maggio''. Museo Vostell Malpartida, 1998, . * Moren, Lisa. ''Intermedia''. Baltimore, Maryland: University of Maryland, Baltimore County, 2003. * Paull, Silke, and Hervé Würz, eds. "How We Met or a Microdemystification". ''AQ 16'' pecial Issue (1977) * Saper, Craig J. ''Networked Art''. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001. * Schmidt-Burkhardt, Astrit. ''Maciunas' Learning Machines: From Art History to a Chronology of Fluxus'', with a foreword by Jon Hendricks. Second, revised and enlarged edition, Vienna and New York: Springer, 2011. . *''Nie wieder störungsfrei! Aachen Avantgarde seit 1964'', Kerber Verlag, 2011, . * ''Fluxus at 50''. Stefan Fricke, Alexander Klar, Sarah Maske, Kerber Verlag, 2012, . * ''Fluxus! 50 Jahre Fluxus''. Werner Esser, Steffen Engle, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, 2012. . * Stegmann, Petra, ed. '' 'The lunatics are on the loose…' European Fluxus festivals 1962–1977''. Down with art! Berlin 2012. . * Stegmann, Petra, ed. ''Fluxus East. Fluxus-Netzwerke in Mittelosteuropa. Fluxus Networks in Central Eastern Europe''. Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin 2007. . * Würz, Fleurice ''Fluxus Nice''. Saarbrücken (Germany): AQ-Verlag, 2011. . * Zanichelli, Elena (2012). ''Women in Fluxus & Other Experimental Tales: Eventi Partiture Performance''. * ''Beuys Brock Vostell. Aktion Demonstration Partizipation 1949–1983''. ZKM – Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, Hatje Cantz, Karlsruhe, 2014, .


Notes


Sources

* * * * * * * * *


External links

*Links at
Ubuweb UbuWeb is a web-based educational resource for avant-garde material available on the internet, founded in 1996 by poet Kenneth Goldsmith. It offers visual, concrete and sound poetry, expanding to include film and sound art mp3 archives. Philosop ...
:
Samples of Fluxus Audio
on the
Tellus Audio Cassette Magazine Launched from the Lower East Side, Manhattan in 1983 as a subscription only bimonthly publication, the ''Tellus Audio Cassette Magazine'' utilized the audio cassette medium to distribute no wave downtown music and audio art and was in activity ...

''An Anthology of Chance Operations'' (1963)

European Fluxus Festivals 1962–1977John Cage on I've Got A Secret performing ''Water Walk'', January 1960, from the same era as his teaching classes at the New SchoolMOMA online archive of Fluxus 1, Fluxkit and Flux Year Box 2Museum Fluxus+ Potsdam, GermanyMuseo Vostell Malpartida
Cáceres, Spain.
The Copenhagen Fluxus Archive

Dick Higgins collection at the University of Maryland, Baltimore CountyFondazione Bonotto, Fluxus works collection Fluxus Digital Collection, University of Iowa Fluxus Comes Alive - interactive Fluxus guide
{{Authority control Contemporary art organizations Conceptual art Avant-garde art Experimental music International artist groups and collectives Neo-Dada