Overview of George Machunas and Fluxus

In 1960, In 1960, a man named George Mertunas planned to launch a magazine for a Lithuanian cultural club that was to be opened in New York. a man named George Mertunas planned to launch a magazine for a Lithuanian cultural club that was to be opened in New York. The name he proposed for the magazine was Flexus. The name he proposed for the magazine was Flexus. When the first issue finally came out, When the first issue finally came out, four years later, four years later, it had turned into something completely different. it had turned into something completely different. And in the meantime, And in the meantime, Flaxus had become known to the world as a group of artists who were struggling to revolutionize the whole concept of art. Flaxus had become known to the world as a group of artists who were struggling to... to revolutionize the whole concept of art. 30 years later, 30 years later, in the summer of 1990, in the summer of 1990, many of the original Flaxes artists met again in Venice for a show in connection with the Biennale. many of the original Fluxus artists met again in Venice for a show in connection with the Biennale. The Biennale Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. BF-WATCH TV 2021 Thank you. So we're standing in front of We're standing in front of Madison Avenue and Madison Avenue and 925 so... 925. The corner of The corner of 74th Street and Madison actually between 74th Street and Madison actually between 73rd and 74th in front of 925 where the in 73rd and 74th in front of 925 where in 1961 used to be A.G. 1961 used to be A.G. A slash G gallery. A slash G gallery. Thank Thank In any case, In any case, it was on the second floor there. it was on the second floor there. the stairs, The stairs, the entrance used to be there and some of the events used to take place also on the stairs. the entrance used to be there and some of the events used to take place also on the stairs. I remember one of the last events was nobody could really climb up into the second floor because George kept pouring down little balls. I remember the very last, one of the last events was this, nobody could really climb up into the second floor because George kept pouring down little balls. I don't remember what they were made from but like balls and it was very difficult to climb up. I don't remember what they were made from, but like balls and it was very difficult to climb up. To get inside To get inside I think we have to go in and ask the people in there for... I think we have to go in and ask the people in there for... Let's see what do we have. Let's see what do we have. Christian Science Reading Room. Christian Science Reading Room, huh? 30 years ago that was. 30 years ago that was... What is on the second floor above this? What is on the second floor above this? What is right there? What is right there? Above us? Above us, there is our superintendent. Our superintendent. Is he there now? Is he there now? No. No. So it's locked. So it's locked. Yes. Yes. There's a space where he has his... This is space where he has his... Yes, Yes, yes. yes. There used to be a gallery 30 years ago. There used to be a gallery 30 years ago. Oh, Oh, maybe a long time ago. maybe a long time ago. A.G. A.G. Gallery. Gallery. A.G.? A.G.? A.G. A.G. What kind of art did they sell? What kind of art did they sell? One could say modern. One could say modern. Modern. Modern. In those days it was modern? In those days it was modern? F.L.U.X.U.S. F.L.U.X.U.S. I've never heard of it, I've never heard of it, and I'm an artist. That is good to know. and I'm an artist. I've never heard of what? I've never heard of Fluxus. And how would you describe it? And how would you describe it? you're described, Lexus. Woo! Hot trick. Find an object near at hand. Find an object near at hand. Keep it under your hat all day. Keep it under your hat all day. These are the archives, These are the archives, some of the documents and original documents and photographs. some of the documents and original documents and photographs. and documentation of events and so on in the Silverman collection. and documentation of events and so on in the Silverman collection. We have them arranged by events and boxes. We have them arranged by events and boxes. Here in this box, Here in this box, These are films that These are films that Ben Voetje had put together of some of the early Fluxus performances in Ben Voce had put together of some of the early Fluxus performances in Nice, and he had sent them to Machunas. Nice, and he had sent them to Machunas. Here it's addressed to George Machunas. Here it's addressed to George Machunas. in Great Barrington and it's a compilation of the very earliest Fluxus performances. in Great Barrington and it's a compilation of the very earliest Fluxus performances. I made a book published by Left Hand Books called Event Scores. I've made a book published by Left Hand Books called Event Scores. Here is Nam June Paik performing a piece at the Cafe. Here is Nam June Paik performing a piece of the Cafe. Dale Gogo in 1961. Ayo Gogo in 1961. Composition for Pake. Composition for Pake. Select a platform or any large square rectangular area that is set apart or raised above the room. Select a platform or any large square rectangular area that is set apart or raised above the room. Measure this area. Measure this area. Using PAKE as assistant, Using Pake as assistant, find its center. Find its center. Then drop a plumb line to this point from the ceiling. Then drop a plumb line to this point from the ceiling. Find the center of this distance and mark the string with chalk. Find the center of this distance and mark the string with chalk. Build for Peck a platform up to this point so that he may sit in the center of the room for the duration of the performance. Build for PAKE a platform up to this point. so that he may sit in the center of the room for the duration of the performance. In In Europe in that time, Europe in that time, it was the beginning of the 60s you can say, it was the beginning of the 60s you can say, there was a... there was a sense that the institutions were... I sense that the institutions were very narrow-minded. very narrow minded. Theatre was theatre, Theatre was theatre, music was music, music was music, art was art, art was art, and art belonged automatically in the museum and music belonged automatically in the concert hall etc etc. and art belonged automatically in the museum, and music belonged automatically in the museum. medically in the concert hall, etc. And I was doing things that And I was doing things that didn't belong to neither of them. It didn't belong in neither of them. You know, if I went to a museum, If I went to a museum, they said there's too much music, they said there's too much music, and if the music's there now, and if the music's too much theater, there's too much theatre. The theatre said there's too much art, the theater said there's too much art, so... so... So it didn't fit any of those territories, It didn't fit any of those territories, but there was nothing in between. but there was nothing in between. So there was a sense in Europe, So there was a sense in Europe, you can say, you can say, among artists, among artists, that the presentational form was too much decided by the institutions. that the presentational form was too much decided by the institutions. I don't think in art games you can win the game, I don't think in art games you can win the game. but you can win the game by changing the rule of the game. But you can win the game by changing the rule of the game. My name is Dick Higgins, My name is Dick Higgins, and I live in the Hudson Valley, and I live in the Hudson Valley, 165 kilometers north of New York City, 165 kilometers north of New York City, in an old church. in an old church. And in the And in the 1950s, I began as a composer. 1950s, I began as a composer. I found myself composing my music with words... I found myself composing my music with words... which turned me into a poet. which turned me into a poet. And I found myself making notations for my poetry, And I found myself making notations for my poetry, which got me into visual art. which got me into visual art. I also studied printing. I also studied printing. And so pretty soon I was working with all the arts, And so pretty soon I was working with all the arts, and I kept waiting for the day when I... and I kept waiting for the day when I... would do only one art and focus on being just one thing it never came so I gave up and called the fusions of things which I was doing intermediate then I found that other people had the same problem and so I wasn't alone and that's how I got to be a fluxus artist my would do only one art and focus on being just one thing it never came so i gave up and called the fusions of things which i was doing intermediate then i found that other people had the same problem and so i wasn't alone and that's how i got to be a fluxus artist one two three four my name is Eric Anderson name is eric anderson i was born in london or copenhagen around I was born in London or Copenhagen around 42 43 my name is Emmett 42 43 my name is emmett williams I was born in South Carolina in 1925 and I was born in South Carolina in 1925 and I lived in Europe most of my life. I lived in Europe most of my life. And I'm a poet, And I'm a poet, printmaker, printmaker, performer, performer, and something else that begins with a P. and something else that begins with a P. Oh yes, Oh yes, painter. paint. And that's it. So my name is Ben Patterson and I'm, I guess, an American Fluxus artist and a Fluxus artist. I'm a painter. I've been around the game and the gang since the beginning, 1962 at least, and before that. I'm Philip Corner. I'm a musician. I'm a musician. I always thought of myself as a musician, composer specifically, my instrument is the piano, in terms of training, but I've been involved with all sorts of other sounds, from metal, gongs, to my own body sound, natural noises, and various things that you don't have to go to school to learn. I'm Ben Bocchi, feeling old, 54 years old, I wonder if I'm repeating myself, my father's Swiss, my mother's Irish, and I'm around in Venice for glory. always. I should give it up, but I can't. My name is Henry Flint. I think of myself mainly as a philosopher working in foundations of science, but as an artist, I'm known as the originator of concept art. I'm Ken Friedman. I'm an artist and designer. I live in Oslo, Norway, and in New York. I've never been a Fluxus artist, and I deeply object to being classified with the Fluxus artists. Nevertheless... My name is Jackson McLo. I'm a writer of poems, plays. prose work and other kinds of writing. I'm a composer and I'm a visual artist. My name is Yoko Ono and other than that I don't know anything about myself. I think that maybe I exist in the future and so let's see what happens. The Fluxus concert done by Machunas was very different from anybody's Fluxus concert. That is to say, he never gave many importance to anybody in it. Everybody had, let's say, 30 seconds, one minute to do a piece. He would do a concert with 30 pieces. The curtain comes in, we are seating, we all fall. piece by George Brecht, then comes in with someone with the two bows and the balls and the tuba is full of balls and they roll down. That is a piece by Robert Watts. Now Robert Watts would have lacked that piece to be longer. He would say, no, only that shock, 30 second shock, stop. So the only one who really invented the Fruxas concert is Matulis. And George Brecht accepted the idea because George Brecht's events wanted to be very small. For instance, one of the most beautiful. events by George Brecht, he comes to the piano, he puts his hands on the piano, the place goes dark, in the dark George Brecht moves away, the lights come, the piano is all alone, nothing else, and puff, you have the shock, one minute you have a beautiful piece, then George Brecht comes later on, we do another piece and puts flowers in the piano, puff, fantastic. George Metronus. Yes. He had a very narrow face and a pointy nose and he looked like a puppet of some kind. a puppet whose joint needed fixing perhaps some more glue he was totally important to flood with george mchunas yes um the plexus was his idea the most useful work that george did was to bring to performances and to publication many kinds of work that might not have been shown elsewhere mchunas was our ringleader more than he was, say, our pope a la Breton. He was just extremely nice, and he was very industrious, and he was a very good organizer, but we could hardly work together. We could work fine on a personal level, but artistically we couldn't work together at all. It just seemed hopeless. A very blunt, forceful, aggressive, ideologist and organizer of refluxes? Not a good leader. There's a difference. George was a great organizer and a fine administrator. To be a leader, you have to be able to work with people, to accept their peculiarities, to make a space for them to contribute in their own way. And in the early days, George was not so tolerant and couldn't do that. August 1st, 1989. Warhol and George, Warhol and Fluxus. Somewhere there, very deep, they were the same. They were both Fluxus. Both dealt essentially with nothingness. It dismissed the current life, civilization, everything that is being practiced today as everything is the same. Didn't take any of it seriously. Both took life as a game and laughed at it, each in his own way, untouched by themselves, looking at it all from the side or from high above and creating their own realities that didn't really fit into it. George was a force in our lives, yes. And to try to conceive of Fluxus without him would be a great mistake. By 1959, he'd become suddenly very active. mainly because John Cage opened up a school and has all those people coming to his school. Also, the so-called novel realists in France become very active. Plus, Ben Wojtyla becomes very active. So 1959 is the influential year. We have Nanjin Paik doing first piece. Yeah, Wastell doing first piece, Alan Kaprow doing first happenings. Yeah, first poster stamps of Bob Watt. A lot of card music that is written on cards like of George Brecht. And first solo concert art of Henry Flynn. Then that goes on to 1960 and Crocsers comes in in 1961. Thank you. Dick invited me to come stay at his house for a few days. And while I was there, I made for him a reconstruction of a matchbox that I had made a year before, which was just a big sort of box of... fear sticker matches for the kitchen. I painted it white and on the outside I wrote open me and then when you open it, it says shut me quick. And he looked at it and said this is a real Fluxus thing. You should take it to George Matunas. I didn't really know who George was, but Dick had shown me the Fluxus thing. So I said, great, because it interested me to meet the guy who was doing this. So I went to see him and he looked at it. I remember I walked up five flights of stairs to his apartment. The apartment belongs to Henry Flint now. And knocked on the door, all these no smoking signs over the door and door opens and this little guy with funny round glasses looks out and he says, who are you? And I said, I'm Ken Friedman. He says, yes, come in, come in. And we sat down. in his kitchen. One room off to one side, I could see, was filled with shelves with boxes and little widgets and gadgets and funny things. And the other room had white, no, it was straw, straw color, tatami rice mat on the floor with funny objects where he could touch a thing and a tool he wanted would float into where he could grab it. And in the kitchen... Linoleum floor, black table, simple black chairs, and a refrigerator painted bright orange. And he said, would you like some orange juice? I said, yes. He opened the refrigerator, and from the floor of the refrigerator up to the ice chest level, filled with oranges, and then four gallon jars of fresh orange juice, half gallon jars of fresh orange juice on each side of the little ice chest. So he poured me a glass of orange juice, and we talked for a few minutes. And he said, this is a very nice box. And he asked me, what do you do? And I told him what I was doing. And he said, would you like to join Fluxus? This actually is probably, well, it's, I guess, the last known chart of Machunas's, where he's tracing, trying to establish or trace the development of Fluxus in relation to other avant-garde. activities during the time of Fluxus, and also explaining where Fluxus comes from. But it's kind of funny. He starts out with a church procession, fantastic art, Versailles, super multimedia spectacles, then he goes into Walt Disney spectacles, and that kind of ends. Then Roman circuses, medieval fairs, international expositions, world fairs, and that goes down into individualism. He says, which is Palak, Shoshmatyur, Gutai, and then into Pike, Bastille, and things like that. Until then I was composing the kind of straight driving, you know, serious art. Arash, Schoenberg, Bartok, you know, world's angst, okay? Yeah. Not only me, but everybody. It was a heavy scene, heavy. And then I was not that good either, but still I was, you know, that expressionistic. That's true. And I am, that's most like in my character. Yeah, but in first concert of John Cage, I was not converted by his theory, you know. Thank you. just leading into Fluxus, were these two series. One which was at Jagonus Loft, which was a series of new music event-like works ...that Lamont Young had organized with Yoko. I was doing my work in New York. I had a studio in Chamber Street and I gave concerts of various people like Lamar Young and Henry Flint and all the names that... you know and it was a concert series that was attended by many interesting people like Marcel Duchamp came to, Max Ernst came to and when Marcel Duchamp came I was hoping that he would notice my paintings that was the first I think I believe of paintings with instructions you know So there's a painting to be stepped on, and I was hoping he would step on it. But I don't think he even noticed it. And I was a shy person, and I would not explain to Dushan about, well, this is my painting, this is how it's, you know, those things. So I was just looking. Would he step on it? So George found out and he came to this concert, one of the concerts in Chamber Street, Loft, and he decided it's a good idea and he got a place in the midtown, in Madison Avenue, and he brought all the people, all the people who were there, all the people who were there, all these artists who did concerts in my loft and started to do a concert in his gallery. He said, this movie should have a name, so please think of some name, think of some name. name and I said no I'm not going to think of any name and about I think it's the next morning or the next next morning George said I thought of a good name and he he said I said well what is the name and he said Fluxus and he opened the dictionary and showed me what the Fluxus what Fluxus meant oh there are many many meanings about Fluxus But one thing that he said, it was so fun, it says flushing, you know, like flushing the toilet. And he laughed about it and he said, isn't that great, you know? But I was still not sure that all these artists doing work should be considered like one movement and have a name. But he thought that was a good idea. So it was him who thought of the name Fluxus. And so that's how Fluxus started. Music to work. Now. There are a number of definitions of fluxes and again they're all equally true. Now, fluxes contains event. Event means life. If I take a glass of water and I drink it, that is fluxes. Now if I make as a... if I'm drinking it, that is theater. If I roll into plastic, that is theater happening. If I shout and do melodrama, that is theater happening, romanticism. But if I drink a glass of water, I think that is life and that is Fluxus. Fluxus comes out of the body. out of Duchamp, John Cage and Zen. Duchamp brought in the idea of ready-made, John Cage brought in the idea of life and impersonality, and Zen brought in something else. It never had as clearly defined a program as if we had all met at a big table and said, okay, now this is our program, this is what we're going to do, and so forth and so on. Fluxus in America has tried to keep onto the impersonality research. Impersonality means non-ego research. John Cage, which did not succeed, but was It's very interesting as a tentative, because I don't believe you can do anything non-ego. Man is a hundred percent ego, and even when he becomes a non-egoist, it is pure ego, non-ego. So that you cannot get non-ego, but you can get a new... statement on ego which is non-ego. Complicated, eh? Fluxus is hard to develop because it is hard to define and because the people insist on the right to change. After all, Fluxus means change and it's a rather good name for an art which is devoted to change. Hold the magnolia seed pod upright in one hand. Examine by scratching the patterned stem. This show is titled Bread and Water. And it's titled that because one day I turned over some homemade bread and I found that it resembled the rivers of the world. This seems a little bit like the Irish Sea. I looked at a great many atlases to do this performance and this work. And then I collected a table of objects which I used. usually do and have for the last three of my exhibitions. So I simply apply my other things I'm doing to the handheld object. This is, let's see what this is. It says, rest fingers inside the horns of the squash for a good feeling. So then in doing that, you see we get the sound of the seeds rolling inside. And it actually is a very nice thing to do with a dry squash. So I'm interested in sound, which involves doing a performance. Everything I've done with those objects was a tiny performance that made a sound for me or for you. A lot of Fluxus is gag-like. That's part of the humor. It's like a gag. In fact, I wouldn't put it in any higher class than a gag. Maybe a good gag. Really? Yeah. You don't consider Fluxus art? Art form? No. I think it's a good inventive gag. The piece that Mccune especially liked was George Breck's Exit, which is just an exit sign. The score reads Exit. Out, ut. And Machunas liked it in that, he described it in the interview with Larry Miller, of how it's a work that we all perform every day. We leave, we go out, we go through the exit, and we perform it without realizing it. It's just an everyday occurrence. We are trying to do non-art, but non-art cannot exist because it is art. And we are trying to do life art, and life art cannot exist because it is either art or life. And if it's life, it's life. And then nobody knows about it. It's my mother-in-law opening the tap and she doesn't know. doesn't care. And if she finds out it's a drip music by George Beck, then she starts thinking and it's art. So you can't get one into the other. It's one and another. And that's important. But I think Fluxus brought up these questions. In the end of 59 and finished in January 1960, I composed Poem for Chairs, Tables, and Benches, etc. Which is a work that is even more involved with my own approach to time structure and that the work can be any duration, but the sounds are the sounds of... chairs, tables and benches and really anything that can be dragged across a floor with an emphasis on getting a really good sound. When I saw Lamont Young's word pieces, then I began to imitate them and around that time, I don't know exactly, yes, I think it was after I saw Lamont's word pieces, I did a piece in which you had... A human performer and an orchestra that was supposed to be monkeys who were given toy instruments and they were all in a cage and the human performer was banging on a kitchen sink with a pipe and Lamont knew of that piece and that's when he wanted to do a piece with many repetitions and so he called it 566 for Henry Flynn because of my piece because of banging the sink with a pipe. I did the piece in April 1960 and it grew out of an improvisation. that I was doing with the Ann Halpern Dance Company in California. Later, I titled it, and the correct title is Arabic numeral, any integer to Henry Flint. Then, when you put it on a program, you determine the number of strokes that you're going to do. Then it goes from there into Fluxus festivals. And this is how Machinist used the chart to see the flow of things, kind of the flowing down. Some things lead off to sort of periphery or to dead ends, he might feel. But with Fluxus, these two series you can see lead right into... The Fluxus Festivals, here he's saying that his series leads right in, but you could equally say that the series that Jokos Loft leads right in to the Fluxus Festivals, which, as you've probably already discussed, started in Wuppertal in 1962 and then went on to Dusseldorf, Paris, Wiesbaden, Copenhagen, and so on. George Machunas was sort of trying to get involved in the avant-garde in New York in early 1961, and he had an art gallery on Madison Avenue, and he met Lamont Young and Jackson. McLo and he was doing series of evenings in his art gallery on Madison Avenue and there was a series that was Lamont Young and Jackson McLo chose the people who were in the series. they produced it, I guess that's what you would say they were the producers at the time that George Junis met me he was a very nice person and he was very helpful to me when I was starving he would give me food George didn't know anything about what was going on in art or music or anything he just had totally conventional ideas then he had to leave for Europe and the anthology he got me that Here we have Jackson Michelot standing right here. Then the next thing we heard at the end of the year, at least I did, I think other people had other kinds of things, were that we were all editors of something called Fluxus, which was first projected as a series of anthologies, I think modeled probably upon Lamont's anthology. But so I've forgotten who was what. but I was first appointed literary editor, and then in a later version of his list, I was the poetry editor. And so during 62 and 63, he had a number of... He began to have concerts, festivals, as he called them, Fluxus festivals, beginning with Wiesbaden. Never! Yes! No. No. Never. No. Ben Patterson and I were doing a piece of his, I forget the title now, but it involved a ladder, and on this ladder there were steaming tea kettles, and on this bounce to the tea kettles there were balloons which were swelling up, and we had started practicing. practicing dart throwing in connection with a piece by a Japanese composer, Ishinagi, who would throw the darts into the backboard of a piano, and the sound was startling. But in this particular piece, we would wait until the balloons expanded and then we would pop the balloons and there would be a pop, you know. And there were some very provocative, slow performances. Not all Fluxus pieces are short. Some of them are very, very provocative in terms of time. I would say Fluxus is often, at least the early Fluxus, very focused on time. Sometimes the pieces are extremely short and sometimes extremely long. And at the Copenhagen Fluxus, they're both very, very short. Both kinds were represented. I remember one long section where Emmett Williams and Eric Anderson were on the stage, each waiting for the other to move. Nobody moved, and after about 45 minutes, mysteriously the performance ended. But of course, theoretically, it could have gone on till now. I found myself, with the second performance of Make a Salad, confronted with all these angry Danes. Especially angry was the head of the music school, who had... actually funded the vegetables for the salad, probably thinking I was going to make something in a little bowl. And instead, I prepared salad for hundreds of people. I found the Copenhagen audience pretty nice after, say, what happened in Wiesbaden, where people hated us and put signs up. They went over our posters and sent them to the nuthouse. They really were hostile. Of course. A piece like that is hard for any audience at that time because to consider making the salad to be a work of art is simply not a perception that most people are ready for. We were going to try to do my whipped cream piece, which I called Lick. I don't know if you know, it's a very simple score. It says just cover a shapely woman nude with whipped cream. And then the next instruction is lick. Adi Kafka had managed to get the Danish Dairy Association to donate gallons and gallons of whipped cream. And then he thought he had somebody. organized to be the woman and then she began to think about it and said no and I remember the whole day you know he goes through all of the friends then he goes through his little black book he starts calling all the other numbers and even the prostitutes which I thought was very strange because Copenhagen in those days is supposed to be the wide-open city of Europe So we didn't manage to do it there. The time that these pieces appeared is so vastly different from the times we're in now that you will not... The concept of audience which we have now was very different from what it was then. So for us it's extremely interesting to see how these very simple works, minimal works... reflect the audience as well as ourselves. 80 Worcester Street where in 1967 George established the first... cooperative which was the beginning of Soho. George Cinematheque, who make a Cinematheque, was took the ground floor and the basement but also George lived for between 67 and 80, 77 in fact, for 10 years he lived in the basement here also. All this work, this was, this is the was the plexus. This tree that you see, that tree there George planted. them. There were tiny, tiny little trees where they grew up, as you can see. And the police and the city people came in the morning and they said, oh, it's forbidden to have trees on this street. It's industrial street. And George said, if you don't like them, you uproot them yourself. I'm not going to do. You uproot it yourself. And they went and they never came back. And the trees are here. BF-WATCH TV 2021 It's based on a work that Brecht had done in the 50s, 1959, called Valois, which is French slang for a thing like what you pack, a backpack, or what you carry with you when you go traveling. And it was a work that Machunas became fascinated with and went through different forms, usually. After the initial ones came in an antique box, and it, in a metaphoric sense, is perhaps what you would... travel with to another world, either to a world of your childhood or a world after death. So it contains things that are round, things that are wooden. This is driftwood, which you might find at the beach. Children's things, toys, that sort of top. Another kind of top, a spin, a toy snake. It's a Fluxus work by George Brecht, but George Brecht gave the idea over to Machunas to realize, not in the sense of the old master. artist doing a design for a printmaker to realize but entrusting machinist to realize the work and so that what is here might be what Brecht would have put in, but it might be quite different. One of the ideas behind Fluxus was to try to get away from the individualism that was prevalent in the Arab world at the time and towards... collectivism and an anonymity of authorship to an experience, just to the experience itself. And that's demonstrated here a little bit by the idea that Machinist is making Brecht's work. I don't consider it an art form. There's no aim to it, there's no purpose. It doesn't have a function, it's not convincing anybody, it's not trying to gain ground, it's not trying to become a success or to change the world. It just takes place. Total chaos, total disorder, total freedom, random, everything can happen, and the other extreme. 28, 27, 24, 21, 18 Fluxus minimalism, a kind of essentialism, non-objectified Ah, And if you go to a museum you've seen it all before, isn't it? I mean any museum and I don't go to museums much any museum I answer I see the same shit everywhere It's like it's like as if I go into McDonald's and I know exactly what I'm gonna get. all of this painting would disappear and ballet would disappear and so forth and so on. But it was kind of an attempt to combine the... You know, this is almost like... This is like, this is your life, you know? Now your van is walking up just as I'm about to mention you. Fluxus contains attitude. That is to say, we don't only produce objects like bronzes or armands or new realism or pop art produces objects. We have an attitude towards art. Hello, Eric. We have an attitude towards art. And that attitude is in, let's say, I decide on not being an artist or suiciding or drinking. Drinking, or not even drinking, we look at art and then we try to change our mind towards it. It seems that everything that art touches dies. To be aware of approaching death is one thing. To accept death is another thing. But George has accepted living with death in a perfect fluxus spirit. He has been used to death all his life. He says he's so full of medicine and drugs and cortisone that the bugs do not bite him. And those bugs that bite him drop dead immediately. Already in 1960 doctors gave him only a few months to live, but he's still around, George, doing his art. George is not using his body to make art. There isn't much of it left. There never was. He's using his life. Thank you. soon I thought truth would change art. See, I said now art is a big lie somewhere because if you take any painting and you scratch behind it, you find ego. So I thought that just behind any painting we can put, please look at. at me so why should i draw like rembrandt or giotto or botticelli i just write what they really want to say please look at me i have done this please look at me so i thought my way of painting would be to tell the truth on a painting so i can write for instance please look at me or just this painting is five meters long or two meters that could be that could be one kind of truth compared you see so i had objective truth and subjective truth that was my kind of work but When I tell you I don't believe so much in myself, it's true. Because after all, it was easy. I don't consider myself as an artist that strives in one profession, one field. I'd like to think that I have the freedom to choose the media whenever I want to, which media, what media I want to, and just use it to communicate my ideas or message. It's true that I was classically trained as a composer and I enjoyed that a lot. But I never saw music as a kind of profession or way of expression or anything like that that is normally understood by being a composer. a composer. It was very natural that I didn't stick to sounds. My very first pieces dealt also with visual phenomena and with the process of playing itself that you try to integrate all kinds, all the aspects. aspects of the performance situation into the single work. So I wouldn't say that I ever wrote a music piece in a classical sense. I wrote a lot of pieces and still do write works for instruments and for orchestral situations. But I never really wrote a piece of music. The piano activities itself was... actually not designed to destroy a piano with. For instance, it was not the original intention. As a matter of fact, I was quite shocked when I heard about it. It gave me a lot of pause to think about it. It was definitely a kinetic piece. The idea was that there were roles, which were verbally defined, which was a way of limiting the activity. You don't just take a baseball bat and smash the piano in pieces, but you use it as a way of provoking many, many, many different effects in a variety of richness. of texture and interest. In any case, my work has always been involved, and piano activity certainly was, with taking the quote-unquote chaos of a large, multiply conceived situation and giving it some kind of shape, some kind of coherence, some kind of order, some kind of purpose. The greatest experience in music is making it yourself. When you're in the audience and hearing it, you only get maybe 50% of the total experience because there's a lot of it which is just in the kinetic, physical thing of... you know, striking the piano or playing the thing and keeping the time going in your head, all of that is a very fulfilling experience. So the attempt was to somehow or other make a piece or work or a whole office of work which anyone... could be a performer and work with the thing without having to go to music school for 30 years, you know, and start at the age of six or something like that. So that piece was a paper piece, and I was looking for an instrument or something or other that anybody could play, and then suddenly it was paper, right? And so with paper you can tear it, or shake it or crumple it or rumple it or bumple and blow up paper bags and squash them. And for better or for worse it became one of the The classic Fluxus piece, which was performed at all the concerts around the world. I heard of later that there was a performance for Japanese television that lasted six hours, which I thought was very nice. But that piece really did, in a way, everything that I wanted to do. It's almost been an anticlimax since then. As mothers tell their daughters, you know, never give anything away. And just collectors who collect stuff and keep it for years and years and years suddenly find that the junk has value, you know. What is an antique shop except something that... full of something, some few things that didn't get thrown away and should have been thrown away. I don't think you can do that with art. What you get here, the real Fluxus works that you might see, is leftovers of a party. It's like going into a room and you see all the dirty tables and you say, oh that's it. It isn't it. It's a leftover of it. You might as well clean it up and start another party. We used to throw things at us and burn up our scores as we were holding them and get out of here. And now you go to something called a flux of performance and the ladies in fur coats. And if you cough, they applaud and they buy what's left over as residual objects. And it's certainly the same feeling. It has no feeling of fluxes as not only a non-establishment thing, but an anti-establishment force. Anybody who claims, you know, who cuts up a poem with scissors, you know, or who takes a paintbrush and throws it on the wall or something like that, that's nostalgia. That's nostalgia. There's no more avant-garde. I mean, we made the most radical criticism that you can make. Fluxus is an attempt which will never succeed. Fluxus is not a hypocritical attempt, but it is an idealistic attempt to pass the Duchamp situation, and we cannot. Because we are in a formal mess. We can do anything we want since Duchamp, but... We can't pass Duchamp because there's no shock. Everything is accepted. So the only way to pass Duchamp would be not to become an artist. But not to become an artist on purpose is being an artist, so that is very complicated. I would really pity anyone who didn't know the difference between art and life. And I participate in these ideas of art and life as some kind of a metaphor, yes, but no. My brain isn't that lame, you know, I really do know the difference. It's true, but some people say that the fluxus starts tomorrow. But I said a long time ago that it had never been invented yet. And you want to invent it? That's what you're trying to do? No, I was hoping that when it finally took place, I would be a part of it. And it didn't take place? Well, something is taking place in... in these old warehouses here but it looks more like a painting show that blocks that vision as far as i can say We are very proud of her. now associate as a flux member or former flux member president of a small country you know you know this um lance ferguson and then But he really changed the world, okay? And Saudis, Saudis is his name of an underground company, political organization Saudis, which he had as a dissent, you know, for a long time. Saudis... In Lithuania, changed Lithuania, and he was the toughest guy, so Golbashev couldn't break. Remember, even as late as one year ago, just when Iran-Iraq war, they sent tank here, you know. So he almost died many times, but he survived, okay, with the humor. In Saudis, what is the original name of the party? means in Lithuanian fluxus so he did have a fluxus party which changed Lithuania and changed the Soviet Union and changed the world so indeed fluxus little finger made I mean no artist organization made such a big positive change you know a negative positive you know I mean it's a positive change Oh

it had turned into something completely different. And in the meantime, And in the meantime, Flaxus had become known to the world as a group of artists who were struggling to revolutionize the whole concept of art. Flaxus had become known to the world as a group of artists who were struggling to... to revolutionize the whole concept of art. 30 years later, 30 years later, in the summer of 1990, in the summer of 1990, many of the original Flaxes artists met again in Venice for a show in connection with the Biennale. many of the original Fluxus artists met again in Venice for a show in connection with the Biennale.

The Biennale Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

BF-WATCH TV 2021 Thank you. So we're standing in front of We're standing in front of Madison Avenue and Madison Avenue and 925 so... 925. The corner of The corner of 74th Street and Madison actually between 74th Street and Madison actually between 73rd and 74th in front of 925 where the in 73rd and 74th in front of 925 where in 1961 used to be A.G. 1961 used to be A.G. A slash G gallery.

A slash G gallery. Thank Thank In any case, In any case, it was on the second floor there. it was on the second floor there. the stairs, The stairs, the entrance used to be there and some of the events used to take place also on the stairs. the entrance used to be there and some of the events used to take place also on the stairs.

I remember one of the last events was nobody could really climb up into the second floor because George kept pouring down little balls. I remember the very last, one of the last events was this, nobody could really climb up into the second floor because George kept pouring down little balls. I don't remember what they were made from but like balls and it was very difficult to climb up.

I don't remember what they were made from, but like balls and it was very difficult to climb up. To get inside To get inside I think we have to go in and ask the people in there for... I think we have to go in and ask the people in there for...

Let's see what do we have. Let's see what do we have. Christian Science Reading Room. Christian Science Reading Room, huh?

30 years ago that was. 30 years ago that was... What is on the second floor above this?

What is on the second floor above this? What is right there? What is right there?

Above us? Above us, there is our superintendent. Our superintendent. Is he there now? Is he there now?

No. No. So it's locked. So it's locked.

Yes. Yes. There's a space where he has his...

This is space where he has his... Yes, Yes, yes. yes.

There used to be a gallery 30 years ago. There used to be a gallery 30 years ago. Oh, Oh, maybe a long time ago.

maybe a long time ago. A.G. A.G. Gallery.

Gallery. A.G.? A.G.? A.G. A.G. What kind of art did they sell? What kind of art did they sell? One could say modern.

One could say modern. Modern. Modern. In those days it was modern?

In those days it was modern? F.L.U.X.U.S. F.L.U.X.U.S. I've never heard of it, I've never heard of it, and I'm an artist. That is good to know. and I'm an artist. I've never heard of what?

I've never heard of Fluxus. And how would you describe it? And how would you describe it? you're described, Lexus. Woo!

Hot trick. Find an object near at hand. Find an object near at hand.

Keep it under your hat all day. Keep it under your hat all day. These are the archives, These are the archives, some of the documents and original documents and photographs.

some of the documents and original documents and photographs. and documentation of events and so on in the Silverman collection. and documentation of events and so on in the Silverman collection. We have them arranged by events and boxes.

We have them arranged by events and boxes. Here in this box, Here in this box, These are films that These are films that Ben Voetje had put together of some of the early Fluxus performances in Ben Voce had put together of some of the early Fluxus performances in Nice, and he had sent them to Machunas. Nice, and he had sent them to Machunas. Here it's addressed to George Machunas.

Here it's addressed to George Machunas. in Great Barrington and it's a compilation of the very earliest Fluxus performances. in Great Barrington and it's a compilation of the very earliest Fluxus performances. I made a book published by Left Hand Books called Event Scores.

I've made a book published by Left Hand Books called Event Scores. Here is Nam June Paik performing a piece at the Cafe. Here is Nam June Paik performing a piece of the Cafe.

Dale Gogo in 1961. Ayo Gogo in 1961. Composition for Pake. Composition for Pake. Select a platform or any large square rectangular area that is set apart or raised above the room.

Select a platform or any large square rectangular area that is set apart or raised above the room. Measure this area. Measure this area.

Using PAKE as assistant, Using Pake as assistant, find its center. Find its center. Then drop a plumb line to this point from the ceiling. Then drop a plumb line to this point from the ceiling. Find the center of this distance and mark the string with chalk.

Find the center of this distance and mark the string with chalk. Build for Peck a platform up to this point so that he may sit in the center of the room for the duration of the performance. Build for PAKE a platform up to this point. so that he may sit in the center of the room for the duration of the performance. In In Europe in that time, Europe in that time, it was the beginning of the 60s you can say, it was the beginning of the 60s you can say, there was a...

there was a sense that the institutions were... I sense that the institutions were very narrow-minded. very narrow minded.

Theatre was theatre, Theatre was theatre, music was music, music was music, art was art, art was art, and art belonged automatically in the museum and music belonged automatically in the concert hall etc etc. and art belonged automatically in the museum, and music belonged automatically in the museum. medically in the concert hall, etc. And I was doing things that And I was doing things that didn't belong to neither of them. It didn't belong in neither of them. You know, if I went to a museum, If I went to a museum, they said there's too much music, they said there's too much music, and if the music's there now, and if the music's too much theater, there's too much theatre.

The theatre said there's too much art, the theater said there's too much art, so... so... So it didn't fit any of those territories, It didn't fit any of those territories, but there was nothing in between.

but there was nothing in between. So there was a sense in Europe, So there was a sense in Europe, you can say, you can say, among artists, among artists, that the presentational form was too much decided by the institutions. that the presentational form was too much decided by the institutions. I don't think in art games you can win the game, I don't think in art games you can win the game. but you can win the game by changing the rule of the game.

But you can win the game by changing the rule of the game. My name is Dick Higgins, My name is Dick Higgins, and I live in the Hudson Valley, and I live in the Hudson Valley, 165 kilometers north of New York City, 165 kilometers north of New York City, in an old church. in an old church.

And in the And in the 1950s, I began as a composer. 1950s, I began as a composer. I found myself composing my music with words... I found myself composing my music with words... which turned me into a poet.

which turned me into a poet. And I found myself making notations for my poetry, And I found myself making notations for my poetry, which got me into visual art. which got me into visual art. I also studied printing. I also studied printing.

And so pretty soon I was working with all the arts, And so pretty soon I was working with all the arts, and I kept waiting for the day when I... and I kept waiting for the day when I... would do only one art and focus on being just one thing it never came so I gave up and called the fusions of things which I was doing intermediate then I found that other people had the same problem and so I wasn't alone and that's how I got to be a fluxus artist my would do only one art and focus on being just one thing it never came so i gave up and called the fusions of things which i was doing intermediate then i found that other people had the same problem and so i wasn't alone and that's how i got to be a fluxus artist one two three four my name is Eric Anderson name is eric anderson i was born in london or copenhagen around I was born in London or Copenhagen around 42 43 my name is Emmett 42 43 my name is emmett williams I was born in South Carolina in 1925 and I was born in South Carolina in 1925 and I lived in Europe most of my life. I lived in Europe most of my life. And I'm a poet, And I'm a poet, printmaker, printmaker, performer, performer, and something else that begins with a P. and something else that begins with a P.

Oh yes, Oh yes, painter. paint. And that's it.

So my name is Ben Patterson and I'm, I guess, an American Fluxus artist and a Fluxus artist. I'm a painter. I've been around the game and the gang since the beginning, 1962 at least, and before that.

I'm Philip Corner. I'm a musician. I'm a musician. I always thought of myself as a musician, composer specifically, my instrument is the piano, in terms of training, but I've been involved with all sorts of other sounds, from metal, gongs, to my own body sound, natural noises, and various things that you don't have to go to school to learn.

I'm Ben Bocchi, feeling old, 54 years old, I wonder if I'm repeating myself, my father's Swiss, my mother's Irish, and I'm around in Venice for glory. always. I should give it up, but I can't.

My name is Henry Flint. I think of myself mainly as a philosopher working in foundations of science, but as an artist, I'm known as the originator of concept art. I'm Ken Friedman.

I'm an artist and designer. I live in Oslo, Norway, and in New York. I've never been a Fluxus artist, and I deeply object to being classified with the Fluxus artists. Nevertheless... My name is Jackson McLo.

I'm a writer of poems, plays. prose work and other kinds of writing. I'm a composer and I'm a visual artist. My name is Yoko Ono and other than that I don't know anything about myself. I think that maybe I exist in the future and so let's see what happens.

The Fluxus concert done by Machunas was very different from anybody's Fluxus concert. That is to say, he never gave many importance to anybody in it. Everybody had, let's say, 30 seconds, one minute to do a piece. He would do a concert with 30 pieces. The curtain comes in, we are seating, we all fall.

piece by George Brecht, then comes in with someone with the two bows and the balls and the tuba is full of balls and they roll down. That is a piece by Robert Watts. Now Robert Watts would have lacked that piece to be longer. He would say, no, only that shock, 30 second shock, stop.

So the only one who really invented the Fruxas concert is Matulis. And George Brecht accepted the idea because George Brecht's events wanted to be very small. For instance, one of the most beautiful.

events by George Brecht, he comes to the piano, he puts his hands on the piano, the place goes dark, in the dark George Brecht moves away, the lights come, the piano is all alone, nothing else, and puff, you have the shock, one minute you have a beautiful piece, then George Brecht comes later on, we do another piece and puts flowers in the piano, puff, fantastic. George Metronus. Yes. He had a very narrow face and a pointy nose and he looked like a puppet of some kind. a puppet whose joint needed fixing perhaps some more glue he was totally important to flood with george mchunas yes um the plexus was his idea the most useful work that george did was to bring to performances and to publication many kinds of work that might not have been shown elsewhere mchunas was our ringleader more than he was, say, our pope a la Breton.

He was just extremely nice, and he was very industrious, and he was a very good organizer, but we could hardly work together. We could work fine on a personal level, but artistically we couldn't work together at all. It just seemed hopeless.

A very blunt, forceful, aggressive, ideologist and organizer of refluxes? Not a good leader. There's a difference. George was a great organizer and a fine administrator. To be a leader, you have to be able to work with people, to accept their peculiarities, to make a space for them to contribute in their own way.

And in the early days, George was not so tolerant and couldn't do that. August 1st, 1989. Warhol and George, Warhol and Fluxus. Somewhere there, very deep, they were the same. They were both Fluxus.

Both dealt essentially with nothingness. It dismissed the current life, civilization, everything that is being practiced today as everything is the same. Didn't take any of it seriously.

Both took life as a game and laughed at it, each in his own way, untouched by themselves, looking at it all from the side or from high above and creating their own realities that didn't really fit into it. George was a force in our lives, yes. And to try to conceive of Fluxus without him would be a great mistake. By 1959, he'd become suddenly very active.

mainly because John Cage opened up a school and has all those people coming to his school. Also, the so-called novel realists in France become very active. Plus, Ben Wojtyla becomes very active. So 1959 is the influential year.

We have Nanjin Paik doing first piece. Yeah, Wastell doing first piece, Alan Kaprow doing first happenings. Yeah, first poster stamps of Bob Watt. A lot of card music that is written on cards like of George Brecht.

And first solo concert art of Henry Flynn. Then that goes on to 1960 and Crocsers comes in in 1961. Thank you. Dick invited me to come stay at his house for a few days.

And while I was there, I made for him a reconstruction of a matchbox that I had made a year before, which was just a big sort of box of... fear sticker matches for the kitchen. I painted it white and on the outside I wrote open me and then when you open it, it says shut me quick.

And he looked at it and said this is a real Fluxus thing. You should take it to George Matunas. I didn't really know who George was, but Dick had shown me the Fluxus thing.

So I said, great, because it interested me to meet the guy who was doing this. So I went to see him and he looked at it. I remember I walked up five flights of stairs to his apartment. The apartment belongs to Henry Flint now. And knocked on the door, all these no smoking signs over the door and door opens and this little guy with funny round glasses looks out and he says, who are you?

And I said, I'm Ken Friedman. He says, yes, come in, come in. And we sat down. in his kitchen.

One room off to one side, I could see, was filled with shelves with boxes and little widgets and gadgets and funny things. And the other room had white, no, it was straw, straw color, tatami rice mat on the floor with funny objects where he could touch a thing and a tool he wanted would float into where he could grab it. And in the kitchen... Linoleum floor, black table, simple black chairs, and a refrigerator painted bright orange. And he said, would you like some orange juice?

I said, yes. He opened the refrigerator, and from the floor of the refrigerator up to the ice chest level, filled with oranges, and then four gallon jars of fresh orange juice, half gallon jars of fresh orange juice on each side of the little ice chest. So he poured me a glass of orange juice, and we talked for a few minutes. And he said, this is a very nice box. And he asked me, what do you do?

And I told him what I was doing. And he said, would you like to join Fluxus? This actually is probably, well, it's, I guess, the last known chart of Machunas's, where he's tracing, trying to establish or trace the development of Fluxus in relation to other avant-garde.

activities during the time of Fluxus, and also explaining where Fluxus comes from. But it's kind of funny. He starts out with a church procession, fantastic art, Versailles, super multimedia spectacles, then he goes into Walt Disney spectacles, and that kind of ends.

Then Roman circuses, medieval fairs, international expositions, world fairs, and that goes down into individualism. He says, which is Palak, Shoshmatyur, Gutai, and then into Pike, Bastille, and things like that. Until then I was composing the kind of straight driving, you know, serious art. Arash, Schoenberg, Bartok, you know, world's angst, okay? Yeah.

Not only me, but everybody. It was a heavy scene, heavy. And then I was not that good either, but still I was, you know, that expressionistic.

That's true. And I am, that's most like in my character. Yeah, but in first concert of John Cage, I was not converted by his theory, you know.

Thank you. just leading into Fluxus, were these two series. One which was at Jagonus Loft, which was a series of new music event-like works ...that Lamont Young had organized with Yoko. I was doing my work in New York.

I had a studio in Chamber Street and I gave concerts of various people like Lamar Young and Henry Flint and all the names that... you know and it was a concert series that was attended by many interesting people like Marcel Duchamp came to, Max Ernst came to and when Marcel Duchamp came I was hoping that he would notice my paintings that was the first I think I believe of paintings with instructions you know So there's a painting to be stepped on, and I was hoping he would step on it. But I don't think he even noticed it.

And I was a shy person, and I would not explain to Dushan about, well, this is my painting, this is how it's, you know, those things. So I was just looking. Would he step on it? So George found out and he came to this concert, one of the concerts in Chamber Street, Loft, and he decided it's a good idea and he got a place in the midtown, in Madison Avenue, and he brought all the people, all the people who were there, all the people who were there, all these artists who did concerts in my loft and started to do a concert in his gallery.

He said, this movie should have a name, so please think of some name, think of some name. name and I said no I'm not going to think of any name and about I think it's the next morning or the next next morning George said I thought of a good name and he he said I said well what is the name and he said Fluxus and he opened the dictionary and showed me what the Fluxus what Fluxus meant oh there are many many meanings about Fluxus But one thing that he said, it was so fun, it says flushing, you know, like flushing the toilet. And he laughed about it and he said, isn't that great, you know?

But I was still not sure that all these artists doing work should be considered like one movement and have a name. But he thought that was a good idea. So it was him who thought of the name Fluxus. And so that's how Fluxus started. Music to work.

Now. There are a number of definitions of fluxes and again they're all equally true. Now, fluxes contains event.

Event means life. If I take a glass of water and I drink it, that is fluxes. Now if I make as a...

if I'm drinking it, that is theater. If I roll into plastic, that is theater happening. If I shout and do melodrama, that is theater happening, romanticism.

But if I drink a glass of water, I think that is life and that is Fluxus. Fluxus comes out of the body. out of Duchamp, John Cage and Zen.

Duchamp brought in the idea of ready-made, John Cage brought in the idea of life and impersonality, and Zen brought in something else. It never had as clearly defined a program as if we had all met at a big table and said, okay, now this is our program, this is what we're going to do, and so forth and so on. Fluxus in America has tried to keep onto the impersonality research. Impersonality means non-ego research. John Cage, which did not succeed, but was It's very interesting as a tentative, because I don't believe you can do anything non-ego.

Man is a hundred percent ego, and even when he becomes a non-egoist, it is pure ego, non-ego. So that you cannot get non-ego, but you can get a new... statement on ego which is non-ego.

Complicated, eh? Fluxus is hard to develop because it is hard to define and because the people insist on the right to change. After all, Fluxus means change and it's a rather good name for an art which is devoted to change.

Hold the magnolia seed pod upright in one hand. Examine by scratching the patterned stem. This show is titled Bread and Water.

And it's titled that because one day I turned over some homemade bread and I found that it resembled the rivers of the world. This seems a little bit like the Irish Sea. I looked at a great many atlases to do this performance and this work.

And then I collected a table of objects which I used. usually do and have for the last three of my exhibitions. So I simply apply my other things I'm doing to the handheld object. This is, let's see what this is. It says, rest fingers inside the horns of the squash for a good feeling.

So then in doing that, you see we get the sound of the seeds rolling inside. And it actually is a very nice thing to do with a dry squash. So I'm interested in sound, which involves doing a performance.

Everything I've done with those objects was a tiny performance that made a sound for me or for you. A lot of Fluxus is gag-like. That's part of the humor.

It's like a gag. In fact, I wouldn't put it in any higher class than a gag. Maybe a good gag. Really? Yeah.

You don't consider Fluxus art? Art form? No. I think it's a good inventive gag.

The piece that Mccune especially liked was George Breck's Exit, which is just an exit sign. The score reads Exit. Out, ut.

And Machunas liked it in that, he described it in the interview with Larry Miller, of how it's a work that we all perform every day. We leave, we go out, we go through the exit, and we perform it without realizing it. It's just an everyday occurrence. We are trying to do non-art, but non-art cannot exist because it is art. And we are trying to do life art, and life art cannot exist because it is either art or life.

And if it's life, it's life. And then nobody knows about it. It's my mother-in-law opening the tap and she doesn't know.

doesn't care. And if she finds out it's a drip music by George Beck, then she starts thinking and it's art. So you can't get one into the other. It's one and another.

And that's important. But I think Fluxus brought up these questions. In the end of 59 and finished in January 1960, I composed Poem for Chairs, Tables, and Benches, etc.

Which is a work that is even more involved with my own approach to time structure and that the work can be any duration, but the sounds are the sounds of... chairs, tables and benches and really anything that can be dragged across a floor with an emphasis on getting a really good sound. When I saw Lamont Young's word pieces, then I began to imitate them and around that time, I don't know exactly, yes, I think it was after I saw Lamont's word pieces, I did a piece in which you had...

A human performer and an orchestra that was supposed to be monkeys who were given toy instruments and they were all in a cage and the human performer was banging on a kitchen sink with a pipe and Lamont knew of that piece and that's when he wanted to do a piece with many repetitions and so he called it 566 for Henry Flynn because of my piece because of banging the sink with a pipe. I did the piece in April 1960 and it grew out of an improvisation. that I was doing with the Ann Halpern Dance Company in California. Later, I titled it, and the correct title is Arabic numeral, any integer to Henry Flint. Then, when you put it on a program, you determine the number of strokes that you're going to do.

Then it goes from there into Fluxus festivals. And this is how Machinist used the chart to see the flow of things, kind of the flowing down. Some things lead off to sort of periphery or to dead ends, he might feel. But with Fluxus, these two series you can see lead right into... The Fluxus Festivals, here he's saying that his series leads right in, but you could equally say that the series that Jokos Loft leads right in to the Fluxus Festivals, which, as you've probably already discussed, started in Wuppertal in 1962 and then went on to Dusseldorf, Paris, Wiesbaden, Copenhagen, and so on.

George Machunas was sort of trying to get involved in the avant-garde in New York in early 1961, and he had an art gallery on Madison Avenue, and he met Lamont Young and Jackson. McLo and he was doing series of evenings in his art gallery on Madison Avenue and there was a series that was Lamont Young and Jackson McLo chose the people who were in the series. they produced it, I guess that's what you would say they were the producers at the time that George Junis met me he was a very nice person and he was very helpful to me when I was starving he would give me food George didn't know anything about what was going on in art or music or anything he just had totally conventional ideas then he had to leave for Europe and the anthology he got me that Here we have Jackson Michelot standing right here. Then the next thing we heard at the end of the year, at least I did, I think other people had other kinds of things, were that we were all editors of something called Fluxus, which was first projected as a series of anthologies, I think modeled probably upon Lamont's anthology.

But so I've forgotten who was what. but I was first appointed literary editor, and then in a later version of his list, I was the poetry editor. And so during 62 and 63, he had a number of... He began to have concerts, festivals, as he called them, Fluxus festivals, beginning with Wiesbaden.

Never! Yes! No.

No. Never. No. Ben Patterson and I were doing a piece of his, I forget the title now, but it involved a ladder, and on this ladder there were steaming tea kettles, and on this bounce to the tea kettles there were balloons which were swelling up, and we had started practicing. practicing dart throwing in connection with a piece by a Japanese composer, Ishinagi, who would throw the darts into the backboard of a piano, and the sound was startling.

But in this particular piece, we would wait until the balloons expanded and then we would pop the balloons and there would be a pop, you know. And there were some very provocative, slow performances. Not all Fluxus pieces are short. Some of them are very, very provocative in terms of time.

I would say Fluxus is often, at least the early Fluxus, very focused on time. Sometimes the pieces are extremely short and sometimes extremely long. And at the Copenhagen Fluxus, they're both very, very short. Both kinds were represented.

I remember one long section where Emmett Williams and Eric Anderson were on the stage, each waiting for the other to move. Nobody moved, and after about 45 minutes, mysteriously the performance ended. But of course, theoretically, it could have gone on till now.

I found myself, with the second performance of Make a Salad, confronted with all these angry Danes. Especially angry was the head of the music school, who had... actually funded the vegetables for the salad, probably thinking I was going to make something in a little bowl. And instead, I prepared salad for hundreds of people. I found the Copenhagen audience pretty nice after, say, what happened in Wiesbaden, where people hated us and put signs up.

They went over our posters and sent them to the nuthouse. They really were hostile. Of course.

A piece like that is hard for any audience at that time because to consider making the salad to be a work of art is simply not a perception that most people are ready for. We were going to try to do my whipped cream piece, which I called Lick. I don't know if you know, it's a very simple score.

It says just cover a shapely woman nude with whipped cream. And then the next instruction is lick. Adi Kafka had managed to get the Danish Dairy Association to donate gallons and gallons of whipped cream. And then he thought he had somebody. organized to be the woman and then she began to think about it and said no and I remember the whole day you know he goes through all of the friends then he goes through his little black book he starts calling all the other numbers and even the prostitutes which I thought was very strange because Copenhagen in those days is supposed to be the wide-open city of Europe So we didn't manage to do it there.

The time that these pieces appeared is so vastly different from the times we're in now that you will not... The concept of audience which we have now was very different from what it was then. So for us it's extremely interesting to see how these very simple works, minimal works... reflect the audience as well as ourselves.

80 Worcester Street where in 1967 George established the first... cooperative which was the beginning of Soho. George Cinematheque, who make a Cinematheque, was took the ground floor and the basement but also George lived for between 67 and 80, 77 in fact, for 10 years he lived in the basement here also.

All this work, this was, this is the was the plexus. This tree that you see, that tree there George planted. them.

There were tiny, tiny little trees where they grew up, as you can see. And the police and the city people came in the morning and they said, oh, it's forbidden to have trees on this street. It's industrial street.

And George said, if you don't like them, you uproot them yourself. I'm not going to do. You uproot it yourself.

And they went and they never came back. And the trees are here. BF-WATCH TV 2021 It's based on a work that Brecht had done in the 50s, 1959, called Valois, which is French slang for a thing like what you pack, a backpack, or what you carry with you when you go traveling.

And it was a work that Machunas became fascinated with and went through different forms, usually. After the initial ones came in an antique box, and it, in a metaphoric sense, is perhaps what you would... travel with to another world, either to a world of your childhood or a world after death. So it contains things that are round, things that are wooden. This is driftwood, which you might find at the beach.

Children's things, toys, that sort of top. Another kind of top, a spin, a toy snake. It's a Fluxus work by George Brecht, but George Brecht gave the idea over to Machunas to realize, not in the sense of the old master.

artist doing a design for a printmaker to realize but entrusting machinist to realize the work and so that what is here might be what Brecht would have put in, but it might be quite different. One of the ideas behind Fluxus was to try to get away from the individualism that was prevalent in the Arab world at the time and towards... collectivism and an anonymity of authorship to an experience, just to the experience itself.

And that's demonstrated here a little bit by the idea that Machinist is making Brecht's work. I don't consider it an art form. There's no aim to it, there's no purpose.

It doesn't have a function, it's not convincing anybody, it's not trying to gain ground, it's not trying to become a success or to change the world. It just takes place. Total chaos, total disorder, total freedom, random, everything can happen, and the other extreme. 28, 27, 24, 21, 18 Fluxus minimalism, a kind of essentialism, non-objectified Ah, And if you go to a museum you've seen it all before, isn't it? I mean any museum and I don't go to museums much any museum I answer I see the same shit everywhere It's like it's like as if I go into McDonald's and I know exactly what I'm gonna get.

all of this painting would disappear and ballet would disappear and so forth and so on. But it was kind of an attempt to combine the... You know, this is almost like... This is like, this is your life, you know?

Now your van is walking up just as I'm about to mention you. Fluxus contains attitude. That is to say, we don't only produce objects like bronzes or armands or new realism or pop art produces objects. We have an attitude towards art.

Hello, Eric. We have an attitude towards art. And that attitude is in, let's say, I decide on not being an artist or suiciding or drinking.

Drinking, or not even drinking, we look at art and then we try to change our mind towards it. It seems that everything that art touches dies. To be aware of approaching death is one thing. To accept death is another thing. But George has accepted living with death in a perfect fluxus spirit.

He has been used to death all his life. He says he's so full of medicine and drugs and cortisone that the bugs do not bite him. And those bugs that bite him drop dead immediately.

Already in 1960 doctors gave him only a few months to live, but he's still around, George, doing his art. George is not using his body to make art. There isn't much of it left. There never was.

He's using his life. Thank you. soon I thought truth would change art.

See, I said now art is a big lie somewhere because if you take any painting and you scratch behind it, you find ego. So I thought that just behind any painting we can put, please look at. at me so why should i draw like rembrandt or giotto or botticelli i just write what they really want to say please look at me i have done this please look at me so i thought my way of painting would be to tell the truth on a painting so i can write for instance please look at me or just this painting is five meters long or two meters that could be that could be one kind of truth compared you see so i had objective truth and subjective truth that was my kind of work but When I tell you I don't believe so much in myself, it's true. Because after all, it was easy.

I don't consider myself as an artist that strives in one profession, one field. I'd like to think that I have the freedom to choose the media whenever I want to, which media, what media I want to, and just use it to communicate my ideas or message. It's true that I was classically trained as a composer and I enjoyed that a lot. But I never saw music as a kind of profession or way of expression or anything like that that is normally understood by being a composer. a composer.

It was very natural that I didn't stick to sounds. My very first pieces dealt also with visual phenomena and with the process of playing itself that you try to integrate all kinds, all the aspects. aspects of the performance situation into the single work.

So I wouldn't say that I ever wrote a music piece in a classical sense. I wrote a lot of pieces and still do write works for instruments and for orchestral situations. But I never really wrote a piece of music. The piano activities itself was...

actually not designed to destroy a piano with. For instance, it was not the original intention. As a matter of fact, I was quite shocked when I heard about it.

It gave me a lot of pause to think about it. It was definitely a kinetic piece. The idea was that there were roles, which were verbally defined, which was a way of limiting the activity. You don't just take a baseball bat and smash the piano in pieces, but you use it as a way of provoking many, many, many different effects in a variety of richness.

of texture and interest. In any case, my work has always been involved, and piano activity certainly was, with taking the quote-unquote chaos of a large, multiply conceived situation and giving it some kind of shape, some kind of coherence, some kind of order, some kind of purpose. The greatest experience in music is making it yourself.

When you're in the audience and hearing it, you only get maybe 50% of the total experience because there's a lot of it which is just in the kinetic, physical thing of... you know, striking the piano or playing the thing and keeping the time going in your head, all of that is a very fulfilling experience. So the attempt was to somehow or other make a piece or work or a whole office of work which anyone... could be a performer and work with the thing without having to go to music school for 30 years, you know, and start at the age of six or something like that. So that piece was a paper piece, and I was looking for an instrument or something or other that anybody could play, and then suddenly it was paper, right?

And so with paper you can tear it, or shake it or crumple it or rumple it or bumple and blow up paper bags and squash them. And for better or for worse it became one of the The classic Fluxus piece, which was performed at all the concerts around the world. I heard of later that there was a performance for Japanese television that lasted six hours, which I thought was very nice. But that piece really did, in a way, everything that I wanted to do.

It's almost been an anticlimax since then. As mothers tell their daughters, you know, never give anything away. And just collectors who collect stuff and keep it for years and years and years suddenly find that the junk has value, you know. What is an antique shop except something that... full of something, some few things that didn't get thrown away and should have been thrown away.

I don't think you can do that with art. What you get here, the real Fluxus works that you might see, is leftovers of a party. It's like going into a room and you see all the dirty tables and you say, oh that's it.

It isn't it. It's a leftover of it. You might as well clean it up and start another party.

We used to throw things at us and burn up our scores as we were holding them and get out of here. And now you go to something called a flux of performance and the ladies in fur coats. And if you cough, they applaud and they buy what's left over as residual objects.

And it's certainly the same feeling. It has no feeling of fluxes as not only a non-establishment thing, but an anti-establishment force. Anybody who claims, you know, who cuts up a poem with scissors, you know, or who takes a paintbrush and throws it on the wall or something like that, that's nostalgia. That's nostalgia. There's no more avant-garde.

I mean, we made the most radical criticism that you can make. Fluxus is an attempt which will never succeed. Fluxus is not a hypocritical attempt, but it is an idealistic attempt to pass the Duchamp situation, and we cannot.

Because we are in a formal mess. We can do anything we want since Duchamp, but... We can't pass Duchamp because there's no shock.

Everything is accepted. So the only way to pass Duchamp would be not to become an artist. But not to become an artist on purpose is being an artist, so that is very complicated.

I would really pity anyone who didn't know the difference between art and life. And I participate in these ideas of art and life as some kind of a metaphor, yes, but no. My brain isn't that lame, you know, I really do know the difference. It's true, but some people say that the fluxus starts tomorrow.

But I said a long time ago that it had never been invented yet. And you want to invent it? That's what you're trying to do?

No, I was hoping that when it finally took place, I would be a part of it. And it didn't take place? Well, something is taking place in... in these old warehouses here but it looks more like a painting show that blocks that vision as far as i can say We are very proud of her.

now associate as a flux member or former flux member president of a small country you know you know this um lance ferguson and then But he really changed the world, okay? And Saudis, Saudis is his name of an underground company, political organization Saudis, which he had as a dissent, you know, for a long time. Saudis... In Lithuania, changed Lithuania, and he was the toughest guy, so Golbashev couldn't break.

Remember, even as late as one year ago, just when Iran-Iraq war, they sent tank here, you know. So he almost died many times, but he survived, okay, with the humor. In Saudis, what is the original name of the party? means in Lithuanian fluxus so he did have a fluxus party which changed Lithuania and changed the Soviet Union and changed the world so indeed fluxus little finger made I mean no artist organization made such a big positive change you know a negative positive you know I mean it's a positive change Oh

Transcript for:Overview of George Machunas and Fluxus

Transcript for:
Overview of George Machunas and Fluxus