Fluxus
The origins of Fluxus can be traced to the experimental composition courses that John Cage gave at the New School for Social Research in New York at the end of the 1950s. The term "fluxus" first appeared in 1961 in New York, where Georges Maciunas organized evenings at his A/G Gallery on the significance of realist, concrete music and the fusion of forms. Among the artists gathering there were George Brecht and Dick Higgins, two of Cage's student from the New School, as well as La Monte Young, Yoko Ono, Hal Hansen, Jackson MacLow, the Living Theatre, Henri Flynt, and Walter De Maria. Maciunas founded the magazine Fluxus and offered his support to Young for the publication of An Anthology (1961), which brought together experimental music and recollections by various European artists and Cage's former "students." In 1962 a Fluxus Festival was held at the Städtische Museum in Wiesbaden, Germany. Five violin virtuosos from Vienna were dismissed and replaced by artists who had never touched a violin and offered instead "anti-music." Among those who distinguished themselves during these fourteen concerts were Emmett Williams, Maciunas, Higgins, Benjamin Patterson, Wolf Vostell, and Nam June Paik. Fluxus was in fact a state of mind rather than a movement, and as such, it brought together artists as diverse as Eric Anderson, Geoffrey Hendricks, Ben Vautier, Vostell, Higgins, Joe Jones, Milan Knizak, Charlotte Moorman, Brecht, Flynt, Paik, Patterson, Williams, Young, Ono, and Robin Page. A form of neo-Dada, Fluxus defined itself by an unlimited exchange among different artistic practices. From the United States, its activities quickly spread to West Germany, Holland, France, and Japan. The historical development basically fell into three periods: 1961-1964, the pre-Fluxus years; 1964-1970, the years of objects and publications, and 1970-1978, the performance years. Fluxus art consisted above all of attitudes, where happenings became all important but continued to coexist with such varied forms as George Brecht's "boxes" and events, Nam June Paik's televisions, Ray Johnson's postal art, and La Monte Young's experiments. In Maciunas's words, Fluxus sought to "promote the reality of non-art so that it can be grasped by everyone." The work thus became a global attitude between life and art.
Bibliography: Jon Hendricks, Fluxus Codex (Detroit, Michigan: Gilbert and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection/Harry N. Abrams, 1988). Janet Jenkins (ed.), In the Spirit of Fluxus (Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 1993). Thomas Kellein, Fluxus (London: Thames and Hudson, 1992). Achille Bonito Oliva (ed.), Ubi Fluxus ibi motus 1990-1962 (Milan: Mazzota, 1990). Emmett Williams, My Life in Flux--and Vice Versa (London: Thames and Hudson, 1992).