GEORGE MACIUNAS AND BEYOND: FLUXUS NEVER STOPS

Keith A. Buchholz

Curator

GEORGE MACIUNAS AND BEYOND: FLUXUS NEVER STOPS

In the time it took to organize this show, major shifts occurred – shifts in location, works to be shown, participants, activities, and ideas of what Fluxus was, is , and could be. A call for works was put out to the “Eternal Network” of Artists, Non-Artists, Poets, Flux people, and Friends to interpret the idea of Fluxus, and in doing so, honor the legacy of George Maciunas, the founder of Fluxus, who was born in Kaunas and emigrated with his family to the United States.

The premise for the show was simple – interpret the concept as you like, using the idea of Textile as a point of departure. Both Flux people and Mail Artists share the inherent love of found materials, and alternative processes. Works range from Found and altered objects, to postcards, boxes, digital images, film, publications, poetry, E-mail, and performance scores. The works often have some handmade quality, and in the process of curating the show, nothing is edited. Some unwritten rules of the network are: “Show everything that you receive” and “All artists are given equal billing”. As you explore this exhibition, feel free to handle the objects, open and close the boxes, and interact with the works. Fluxus works are tactile works – Meant to Communicate and Inform.

When Fluxus started, roughly 50 years ago this year, Maciunas brought together a wide variety of artists who were working outside the boundaries of what was seen as art by the general public. In Al Hansen’s “On Fluxus” (which has been republished in a pamphlet form as part of this exhibition), he states that “Fluxus rejected what was felt to matter in the New York and European art machinery.” In many ways it still does.

Recent institutional interest in Fluxus has changed some things, as the cheaply made multiples (intended to derail the value of art) have become fetishized. Values of early Fluxus works have risen dramatically, and an expanding crop of Curators and Collectors have enshrined works made during Maciunas’ lifetime, drawing and end date on Fluxus at 1978 with George’s death. With most Movements in art this would be easy, but Fluxus, a fluctuating group of international artists, has never considered itself a “Movement”. Artists have continually been drawn to Fluxus, and have taken up its banner since the exit of its chairman, sometimes with the blessing of its early participants, sometimes bravely on their own, building networks that eventually interweave with others to form the broad spectrum seen in this exhibition. It can be guaranteed that no matter how remote, these artists, by minimal degrees of separation, can draw a path back, directly to George.

In the words of Dick Higgins, a member of that first circle of George’s, “Fluxus has a life of its own, apart from the old people in it. It is simple things, taking things for themselves and not just as part of bigger things. It is something that many of us must do, at least part of the time. So Fluxus is inside you, is part of how you are. It isn’t just a bunch of things and dramas, but is part of how you live. It is beyond words.” George’s gift for organizing and developing such a network, which has been described as “An Attitude”, “Way of Life”, and “An extended family”, is bigger than anything a date or label can contain. We salute George best by continuing on this path. Ben Vautier may have said it best, “Fluxus Never Stops!”

source: http://www.bienale.lt/2011/?p=371&lang=en