fluxus revised and revisited
Post on 10-Apr-2018
229 Views
Preview:
TRANSCRIPT
8/8/2019 Fluxus Revised and Revisited
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/fluxus-revised-and-revisited 1/4
Review: Fluxus Revised and RevisitedAuthor(s): Elizabeth Beckman and Jonathan ApplefieldSource: Art Journal, Vol. 58, No. 3 (Autumn, 1999), pp. 100-102Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/777864
Accessed: 08/10/2010 19:01
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.
Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=caa.
Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
College Art Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Art Journal.
8/8/2019 Fluxus Revised and Revisited
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/fluxus-revised-and-revisited 2/4
Fluxus Revised and
Revisited
Elizabeth Beckman and
jonathan Applefield
Joan Marter, ed. Off Limits:Rutgers
University and the Avant-Garde,
1957-1963. Exh. cat. Newark: The Newark
Museum and New Brunswick:Rutgers
University Press, i999. Essays by Simon
Anderson,Joseph Jacobs, JacksonLears,
Marter, Kristine Stiles. 199 pp., 31 color
ills., 80 b/w. $60, $30 paper.
Emmett Williams and Ann Noel, eds.
MR. FLUXUS:A Collective Portrait of
George Maciunas, 1931-1978. London:
Thames and Hudson, 1997. 352 pp., b/w
ills. $34.95.
Ken Friedman, ed. The Fluxus Reader.
Chichester,England: Academy Editions,
1998. Essays by Friedman,Owen Smith,
Simon Anderson, HannahHiggins, Ina
Blom, David T. Doris, CraigSaper,Estera
Milman, Stephen C. Foster, Nicholas
Zurbrugg,LarryMiller, SusanL.Jarosi,
Dick Higgins. 309 pp.
The "RutgersCircle"-George Brecht,
RobertWatts, Robert Whitman, Roy
Lichtenstein,Allan Kaprow, LucasSamaras,
George Segal, and Geoffrey Hendricks--was the subject of OffLimits:Rutgers niversityand heAvantGarde, 957-1963,an exhibition
organized by the Newark Museum this
spring. Curatedby Joseph Jacobs, this was
one of the most challenging exhibitions in
years-for the curator and visitors alike. At
a time when museums seek to prioritizeentertainment over education, the exhibi-
tion entertained and educated simultane-
ously. It became a funhouse of Fluxus,
Pop, Happenings, and whatever category
in which one places Samaras'swork. At
moments it effectively reanimated the origi-nal concept of the art on display, while at
others, the work remained "off limits"--
preserved as documents of the past.
Brecht's Solitaire 1959), a game consist-
ing of twenty-seven playing cards with
instructions, was displayed in a vitrine. A
facsimile of the original deck sat on a table
for anyone to play. For fifty cents one
could buy a book of Watts's stamps from
his StampMachine1962). Whitman's Shower
(1962), an assemblage of running water,
transparent hower curtain, and projectedfilm footage of a woman bathing, created
a new sense of voyeurism for viewers. An
index finger pointed visitors from one sec-tion or "event" of the exhibition to the
next. A trademarkof Fluxus typography,the finger made reference to the sign
painter's detail in MarcelDuchamp's Tu m'
(1918). This sign has been interpretedas
representingthe declarative,performative
act of seeing, naming, and redefining the
found object.' This is precisely what manyof the works in the exhibition did as these
artistsrealized Duchamp's concepts to their
fullest extent.
Some of the work was "off limits."
While one would not think of touchinga canvas such as LookMickey1961),
Lichtenstein'sfirst comic strip painting,
everyone loves to play with games. Watts's
FrogGame(i96o), a mechanized assemblagethat resembled a pinball game with wind-
up toys and blinking lights, was embalmed
in a museum case. The game's coiled-upelectricalcord laid dead just inches from
the wall outlet that could give the toy-artlife. One could read the instructionsbut
no longer play the game. Another inactiveinteractivepiece was Brecht'sRepository
(1961). Although the artistoriginally in-
tended for viewers to replace the shelved
objects with substitutes of their own
choice, it too was installed in a museum
case. On the occasion of an exhibition of a
similarwork, Medicine hest(i96o), Brecht
wrote to the curator, "It is within the spiritof the work that (as in life in general)
parts may be lost, broken, spilled, stolen,
replaced, contributed, soiled, cleaned, con-
structed, destroyed."2'But in both FrogGame
and Repository,nly the visual pleasure of
the work remained, and the original con-
cept of play was short-circuited.Kaprow side-stepped this problem by
"reinventing"one of his early Environ-
ments. BeautyParlor V (i958/99), originally
made in 1958 for the Hansa Gallery,was
reinvented before, in 1991at the Fonda-
zione Mudima, Milan.3 In its Newark rein-
vention, the Environmentgave viewers the
feeling of being in an arcadewith clear
plastic walls, mirrors, and colored lights.For two dollars, one could step into one
of four photobooths for a snapshot while
wearing one of the funhouse
masks borrowed from a nearbyrack. Visitors could then hangtheir self-portraitson the wall.
Most of the Happeningsand Eventswere presented
through documentation con-
sisting of photographs, hand-
written sketches, notebooks,
score cards, and film. There
was a large section dedicatedto
the Yam Festival, the year-longseries of Events, Happenings,
exhibitions, and mailings orga-
nized by Watts and Brecht in1962-63; a new documentary on Whitman's
American oon(i96o); and audio recordingsfrom John Cage's famous classes at the
New School (1957-59). This solid and visu-
ally attractivehistorical presentationwas
not as much fun or as edifying as experi-
encing Brecht'sMotorVehicleundownEvent)
(I96o), which the New Jersey Symphony
Orchestraperformed at the closing of the
exhibition across the street in WashingtonPark.LarryMiller, the Fluxus artist and
former student of Watts, conducted.
RobertWatts. Table orSuicideEvent(detail),1961. Painted wood table,ink drawing collage,various objects. 34%x
30Yx 27X (88 x 78. x
69.9). Courtesy RobertWatts Estate. Photo
LarryMiller.
100 FALL 1999
8/8/2019 Fluxus Revised and Revisited
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/fluxus-revised-and-revisited 3/4
Not since Blam:TheExplosionf Pop,
Minimalism Performance958-i964, the ex-
hibition and catalogue prepared by the
Whitney Museum of AmericanArt in 1984,
has such an extensive, well illustrated cata-
logue charted this aestheticallydiverse
period. It contains interviews with six of
the artistsin the exhibition and one withLettyLou Eisenhauer,in which the work
of Watts and Brecht is discussed. The inter-
views primarilyfocus on the artists' con-
nection with Rutgersand their relation-
ships with one another. Jacobsprovidesan essay that relates Cage's classes and his
1958 lecture at Rutgersto the art in the
exhibition. The catalogue also includes
a serviceablebibliography, an extensive
chronology, and a number of previously
unpublished black-and-white and color
photographs. An important coda to the
publication is "Project n Multiple Dimen-sions" (i957), a previously unpublished
proposal by Watts, Brecht, and Kaprow
outlining a program for art education that
foregrounds multimedia, new technology,and scientific methods in studio practice.
However, one flaw in the presentation
(especially evident in the catalogue) is the
role with which Rutgersis credited in
the formation of the artists' experimental
approachesto art. In fact, the progressive
teaching at the school was less the productof a philosophy endorsed by the adminis-
tration than the fortuitous arrival of newfaculty consisting of Kaprow, Hendricks,
Watts, and Lichtenstein. It sometimes
sounds as if an act of nostalgic romanti-
cization or institutional boosterism takes
place here. One reason for this is to
strengthen the exhibition's raison d'etre--that is, to unify the eight players featured.
The catalogue's editor, Joan Marter,re-
prints a lengthy excerpt from Kaprowto
add some local color to the "stimulatingambiance on the New Brunswickcampus"
(2). But this excerpt is more interesting
for what she omits: "The university wassunken in poetic indifference, in a blank
sleep preserved by campus dons and ladies'
clubs .... Ironically, Rutgers was the cata-
lyst in all this, in spite of itself. For the
record, it never encouraged, and often
opposed, what we were doing in that for-
lorn place."* Thus, it was ironic that Book,
originally a part of Samaras'sM.A. thesis,
was included in the exhibition. The admin-
istrationwished to censor it, since it con-
tained language they found unacceptable,
but Kaprowardently interceded on his stu-
dent's behalf. Samaraseventually received
his degree, but Kaprow, passed over for
tenure shortly afterwards,left Rutgers.Thisis all paradoxical considering the cataloguemakes repeated comparisons between
Rutgersand Black Mountain College.Mr.Fluxus: CollectiveortraitfGeorge
Maciunas,ompiled and edited by three
Fluxus insiders, EmmettWilliams, Ann
No6l, and Ay-O, gathers in kaleidoscopic
fashion reflections and primarydocuments
from seventy different voices that bringto life the idiosyncratic, amazingly prolific
characterwho was the prime engine of
Fluxus. From Yoko Ono to the Deputy
AssistantAttorney General of New York,from KateMillet to the artist'sown mother,
a truly collective portraitunfolds as easilyand amusingly as if one were listening in
on a party line. This is not only due to the
content of the contributions, but also the
way they are arranged.The reader'stactile
senses are aroused as one shuttles back
and forth to the index to find the author
of each entry. LikeTristanTzaraor Andre
Breton, Maciunas'spersona has become the
subject of caricature,but this polyphonic
approach grounds the better known images
and anecdotes in a meaningful context,illuminated by first-handimpressions byintimate friends, colleagues, and occasional
foes.
The three hundred entries (usually no
more than a few paragraphseach), are
arrangedin thematic and chronological
chapters. They take the reader from "The
Old Country" (Maciunaswas Lithuanian)and "TheEuropeanFestivals" to "SeeingRed" (on Maciunas'spolitics), "Don
Quixote in SoHo" (his pioneering role in
establishing artistsco-operatives in SoHo)
and "Leaky Dreamboats" (his plans to "setup a Fluxus island, a colony, you know,
like a real country, with a United Nations
delegation and all that" [221]). These
last two chapters show the breadth of
Maciunas's idealism. "His achievement was
not only Fluxus, but also Soho," writes
Nam June Paik (194). This development
R e v i e w s
of "Hell's ioo Acres" (the fire depart-
ment's term for pre-artist colonized Soho)
is thoroughly documented with Maciunas
as primogenitor. It is he we may thank for
"illegally"planting the first trees in front
of 8o Wooster Street.
There are
humorous,touching, and
even tragicmoments in the
story as well,
which help to
explain the look and attitude of Fluxus in
general, as well as the personalrelation-
ships that defined the group. For instance,
one gains a sense of Maciunas's aesthetic
predilections in the midst of his legal
imbroglio over taxes with the Attorney
General's Office. His reply to bureaucracy:
a "Flux-fortress(for keeping away the mar-shals & police: various unbreakable doors
with giant cutting blades facing out ...trick doors and ceiling hatches, filled or
backed with white powder, liquids, smellyextracts" [i85]). Such gags are in keepingwith many of the humorous boxes he pro-duced under the Fluxus imprimatur. (Years
later, he would construct a similar Flux
Labyrinthat the Akademieder Kiinstein
Berlin). Another example of the relation
of his personal life to Fluxus history is the
way his friends joined Maciunas in his last
months of fighting cancer, assemblingmore Fluxus boxes to raise much needed
money for his medical bills.
The most valuable aspect of this liter-
ary portraitcomes not from anecdotes or
historical facts, but from the more intangi-ble aspects of his art that one gleans from
Maciunas'stemperament, mannerisms, per-sonal habits, tastes, and obsessions. His
penchant for cleanliness, drive for system-atic organization, compulsive thriftiness,
and love of practical jokes extended far
beyond the confines of his life to infuse
every aspect of Fluxus. All boundariesbetween personal biography and Fluxus
seem to collapse, making Mr.Fluxus n illu-
minating account not only of Maciunas the
man, but a window into the larger concep-tual and aesthetic field he dominated.
Fluxus is further explored in TheFluxus
Reader,dited by longtime Fluxus chronicler
101 art journal
8/8/2019 Fluxus Revised and Revisited
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/fluxus-revised-and-revisited 4/4
Ken Friedman. It is a collection of twelve
essays and two interviews by art historians
and other scholars (including one
"Fluxkid"-Hannah Higgins) and three
Fluxus artists,LarryMiller, the late Dick
Higgins, and Friedman himself. Most of
the selections focus on the frequentlyasked
question, What is Fluxus? While it mustbe admitted that the literature dedicated
to this difficult subject is dominated byexhaustive inventories of people, places,and events, ratherthan any criticalanalysesof the actual works of the artists, few
essays here offer original interpretations.The anthology begins with "Three
Histories" that rely heavily on primarysources. The essays explore whether Fluxus
was a movement, its similarities and differ-
ences from Dada, and other academic con-
cerns. Although useful as a chronology
of performancesand publicationswith a
description of group polemics, this section
presents an evisceratedhistory, with noth-
ing more than a list of events describingthe circumstancessurroundingvarious
Fluxuspieces. Predictablebows to Maciunas
and Cage complete a compendium of
superficialinformation.
Thankfully,Ina Blom's "Boredom and
Oblivion" picks up the pace. She exploresmore than the usual erasureof boundaries
between life and art that writers so often
talk about without saying anything sub-
stantial. Instead of dropping Cage's namewith the typical historical information that
he was key to the avant-garde n the late
i95os, Blom discusses the central difficul-
ties Cage's theories presented to the Fluxus
artist. For instance, she illustrateshow
Paik and Dick Higgins probed into change,
chance, and variation strategiesthat became
foundations for many Fluxus artists. She
also examines why an artistwould pur-
posely explore a concept as apparentlydull
as a melting ice cube. This discussion is
in relation to Brecht'sinterpretationof the
law of thermodynamics "as just a summa-tion of a very large number of individual
chance events" (71). She examines the
meaning of boredom in a Fluxus work,
explaining how it is a catalyst to fade the
work into the environment-destroying
boundaries.
Two other essays worth mentioning
are Dick Higgins's "Fluxus:Theory and
Reception" and Friedman's "Fluxus and
Company." Higgins demonstrates what
Fluxus borrowed and rejected from three
avant-gardemovements: Futurism,Dada (a
comparison he finds "extremely annoying"
[218]), and Surrealism.Significantly,he
analyzes how a Fluxuspiece affects a par-
ticipant. He concludes that the more an
audience interactsin or with a Fluxus
work, the more enjoyment it will experi-ence. According to Higgins, an essential
part of being Fluxus is not catering to col-
lectors, gallerists,and museum curators.
The most interesting part of the essay man-
ifests itself when Higgins asks who can be
a Fluxus artist;he even mentions criteria
for new Fluxus artists to follow, suggestingthat Fluxus is not dead. Friedman also
addressesthis endlessly argued polemic.
Some historians end Fluxus with the deathof Maciunas.They ignore the "twelve core
issues that can be termed the basic ideas
of Fluxus" (244), which Friedman defines
meticulously. He insinuates that Fluxus
is an evolving entity: "it has undergonea continuous process of co-creation and
renewal for four decades," and he contin-
ues to say, "We are still here" (253).
If after all this, you remain at a loss as
to the question of "What is Fluxus?"read
Miller's "MaybeFluxus (A Para-
InterrogativeGuide for the Neoteric
Transmuter,Tinder, Tinkerand Totalist),"arrangedas a series of twenty-three scenar-
ios. Miller takes on important philosophical
quagmires that puzzle us all, such as,
"Maybe you wonder if there is a certain
attire for Fluxperformance-should you
get any common worker's uniform, get
nude, get a tuxedo and gown, cross-dress
or simply come-as-you-are?" (212). Or
more imperatively: "Maybeyou think
Fluxus, dead-or-alive, is just neo-Dada-
should we therefore anticipateeither a
post-appropriationism or a post-plagiarism
with the appearance of neo-Fluxus?"Not surprisingly, The FluxusReader
concludes with a hefty thirty-eight page
chronology of events. While useful for
checking a date or location, such invento-
ries, an unfortunate commonplace in
Fluxus literature, tend to deaden the sub-
ject and dampen reader interest. The book
does come alive, however, when put
alongside the two other publications under
review. Takentogether, catalogue (admit-
tedly with its broader focus), biography,and anthology offer a well-rounded historyof Fluxus.
I. BenjaminH. D.
Buchloh, "ReadyMade, ObjetTrouv6, Idle ReCue,"n Dissent: TheIssueofModernArt nBoston(Boston: Institute of
Contemporary Art, 1985), 107-22.
2. George Brecht, "Notes on Shippingand
ExhibitingMedicine Cabinet,"November 16,1961, artist's file, The Museumof Modern Art,New York.
3. AllanKaprow,"Introduction o a Theory," in
G. DiMaggio,ed., bullshit01 (Milan:MulthiplaEdizioni, 1991).4. AllanKaprow,in 10 FromRutgers, xh. cat
(New York: BianchiniGallery, 1965), 3.
ElizabethBeckman is an artist and art historian
who teaches at the National Museum of the
American Indian,Smithsonian Institution,New
York.JonathanApplefield (Columbia University,M.A., 1991: M.Phil.,1993) is a Research and
WritingAssociate at the Whitney Museum of
American Art, New York.
102 FALL 1999
top related