Information off of Graphic design history. com
is an international network of
artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media
and disciplines in the 1960s.
“The most commonly cited include the series of
Chamber's Street loft concerts, New York, curated by Yoko Ono and La Monte
Young in 1961 featuring pieces by Jackson Mac Low and Henry Flynt”
“Yam festival held in upstate New
York by George Brecht and Robert Watts in May, 1963 with Ray Johnson and Allan
Kaprow that was the culmination of a year's worth of Mail Art pieces
“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.”
'fuse... cultural, social, &
political revolutionaries into a united front and action
Maciunas first publically coined
the term Fluxus (meaning 'to flow')
“Anti-art is
life, is nature, is true reality—it is one and all.”
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.' —Julia Robinson
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, The Cedilla That Smiles,
"A carefree exchange of
information and experience. No students, no teachers. Perfect licence, at times
to listen at times to talk."
'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'
However, the influence of Fluxus
continues today in multi-media digital art performances.
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 makes
the same claim dating the movement to the 1960s and 1970s.”
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,
the rise of the Internet in the
1990s has enabled a vibrant Fluxus community to thrive online
As Fluxus artist Robert Filliou 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
Fluxus encouraged a
“do-it-yourself” aesthetic, and valued simplicity over complexity. Like Dada
before it, Fluxus included a strong current of anti-commercialism and an
anti-art sensibility, disparaging the conventional market-driven art world in
favor of an artist-centered creative practice.
The Event performances sought to
elevate the banal, to be mindful of the mundane, and to frustrate the high
culture of academic and market-driven music and art. Other creative forms that
have been adopted by Fluxus practitioners include collage, sound art, music,
video, and poetry—especially visual poetry and concrete poetry.
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 context.
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. 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.
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 movemen
As Fluxus artist Robert Filliou
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.
Fluxus encouraged a
“do-it-yourself” aesthetic, and valued simplicity over complexity. Like Dada
before it, Fluxus included a strong current of anti-commercialism and an
anti-art sensibility, disparaging the conventional market-driven art world in
favor of an artist-centered creative practice.
The Event performances sought to
elevate the banal, to be mindful of the mundane, and to frustrate the high
culture of academic and market-driven music and art. Other creative forms that
have been adopted by Fluxus practitioners include collage, sound art, music,
video, and poetry—especially visual poetry and concrete poetry.
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