Fluxus
Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of visual artists, composers, designers, and poets active in the 1960s and 1970s. Inspired by John Cage's chance operations and Duchamp's readymades, its members privileged process and everyday life over the finished art object. George Maciunas coined the name in 1961 and organized the first Fluxfests in Wiesbaden in 1962, followed by festivals, street concerts, and mail-order FluxShops across Europe, America, and Japan. Works took the form of event scores - brief instructions for ordinary actions - cheap Fluxkit multiples in boxes and envelopes, noise concerts, and proto-video performances. Few members considered it a true movement, and that fluidity was the point: Fluxus dissolved the borders between art, music, poetry, and life.
Defining characteristics
- Event scores: terse printed instructions for everyday actions performed as art
- Cheap, mass-produced multiples in boxes and envelopes (Fluxkits), often black and white
- Deliberately plain, anti-professional finish that rejects gallery polish
- Ordinary objects and actions - vegetables, pianos, beans, ties - staged as art
- Time-based, participatory works that the audience completes
- Typewritten or bluntly set text, rubber stamps, and graphic design as the work
Key figures
- George Maciunas (1931-1978) — Coined the name in 1961 and organized the festivals and Fluxkit editions
- Yoko Ono (b. 1933) — Instruction pieces and performances such as Cut Piece
- Nam June Paik (1932-2006) — Pioneered video art inside Fluxus with television-based work
- Joseph Beuys (1921-1986) — Fluxus figure whose actions fused art, teaching, and social sculpture
- Dick Higgins (1938-1998) — Publisher and theorist who coined 'intermedia'
Example works
- Water Yam — George Brecht (1963)
- Fluxus Manifesto — George Maciunas (1963)
- Cut Piece — Yoko Ono (1964)
Sources
- Fluxus - Wikipedia encyclopedia
- George Maciunas - Wikipedia encyclopedia
- Fluxus 1 - Wikipedia encyclopedia