Henning Christiansen (28 May 1932 in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

– 10 December 2008) was a Danish composer and an active member of the

Fluxus 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 ...

-movement. He worked with artists such as

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

as well as with his wife

Ursula Reuter Christiansen Ursula Reuter Christiansen (born 13 February 1943 in Trier, Germany) created work, whether it was painting or filmmaking, that showed examples of mythological symbolism. Biography Ursula Reuter Christiansen studied literature at the Philipp Univer ...

. Other collaborators include

Bjørn Nørgaard Bjørn Nørgaard (born 21 May 1947 in Copenhagen) is a Art of Denmark, Danish artist who has been active in a variety of fields. He has significantly influenced the art scene in Denmark both through his "happenings" and his sculptures in Danish ...

, Carlo Quartucci, Carla Tato, Ernst Kretzer,

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 ...

, David Moss,

Ute Wassermann Ute Wassermann (born 1960) is a German vocalist, composer and sound artist. Biography Ute Wassermann studied fine arts focusing on sound installations and performance at the University of Fine Arts of Hamburg. Among her teachers were Hennin ...

, Andreas Oldörp, Christophe Charles, Bernd Jasper, Henrik Kiel, Vilem Wagner,

Vladimir Tarasov Vladimir Ilich Tarasov (russian: Владимир Ильич Тарасов; born 7 February 1939 in Moscow) is a Russian animator and animation director. He is best known for his Soviet-era science fiction short films, such as ''The Pass, Cont ...

, Niko Tenten, and many others. His overall goal was to work collaboratively and to trespass conventional boundaries. He resented the idea of an isolated artistic genius and his entire production can be seen as a subsequent and vibrant example of praxis in a constant flux. He believed in the need to trespass conventional boundaries between artistic disciplines. This is visible from his engagement in Fluxus, over numerous collaborative performances to his position as a professor at the Art Academy in Hamburg ( Hochschule für Bildende Künste – HfBK). Christiansen lived almost 40 years on the Danish Island

Møn Møn () is an island in south-eastern Denmark. Until 1 January 2007, it was a municipality in its own right but it is now part of the municipality of Vordingborg, after merging with the former municipalities of Langebæk, Præstø, and Vordingbo ...

. He presented a retrospective exhibition in

and participated in the music festival Wundergrund shortly before his death. The word " minimal" was perhaps first used in relation to music in 1968 by

Michael Nyman Michael Laurence Nyman, Order of the British Empire, CBE (born 23 March 1944) is an English composer, pianist, libretto, librettist, musicologist, and filmmaker. He is known for numerous film soundtrack, scores (many written during his length ...

, who "deduced a recipe for the successful 'minimal-music' happening from the entertainment presented 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 ...

and

at the ICA", which included a performance of ''Springen'' by Henning Christiansen and a number of unidentified performance-art pieces.

Works (selected)

*''Sonate Op. 13'' (1962) *''Perspective Constructions'' (1965) *''Beckett-sange Op. 14'' (1963) *''Den arkadiske op.32'' (1966) *''fluxorum organum Op.39'' (1967) *''Hulemåned Op. 143'' (1981) *''Betrayal Op. 144'' (1981) *''Sulemåned Op. 145'' (1981) *''Kong Frost Op. 147'' (1982) *''Maskemåned Op. 148'' (1982) *''Kameliadamens kærlighed og død Op. 152'' (1983) *''Symphony Natura Op.170'' (1985) *''Abschiedssymphonie Op.177'' (1988) *''Kreuzmusik'' (1989) *''Verena Vogelzymphon'' (1991) *''Dust Out of Brain'' (1995)

References

External links

Archivio Conz

1932 births 2008 deaths Danish classical composers Danish male classical composers 20th-century classical composers Recipients of the Eckersberg Medal 20th-century Danish male musicians Fluxus {{denmark-composer-stub

Works (selected)

References

Further reading

External links