How Could Fluxus Not Be Considered an Art Movement at All?

Beginnings of Fluxus

Fluxus was an advanced art motility that emerged in the late 1950s equally a group of artists who had become disenchanted with the elitist attitude they perceived in the fine art world at the time. These artists looked to Futurists and Dadaists for inspiration, focusing especially on performance aspects of the movements. The Dadaist use of humor in fine art was also definitive in the formation of the Fluxus ethos. The 2 virtually dominant forces on Fluxus artists were Marcel Duchamp and John Cage, who championed the utilise of everyday objects and the element of chance in art, which became the fundamental mental attitude and practice of all Fluxus artists.

The early on phase of Fluxus, often chosen Proto-Fluxus, began in 1959 when a group of artists who had met in Muzzle's class at The New School in New York banded together to grade the New York Sound Visual Grouping. This grouping provided venues for experimental and performance art. Al Hansen, Dick Higgins and Jackson Mac Low were associated with this group, and would all be office of Fluxus. George Maciunas, ofttimes credited equally the driving force behind what is otherwise a rather inchoate movement, would often be in the audition at the performance venues. Maciunas is credited with naming the grouping Fluxus, which means "to catamenia." The beginning Fluxus event was organized by Maciunas at the AG Gallery in New York in 1961, where he was co-owner. The event was called Bread & AG, and consisted of readings past poet Frank Kuenstler. That was the first in a series of performances that were staged that year at AG Gallery.

Fluxus: Concepts, Styles, and Trends

George Maciunas had strong opinions he often and forcefully expressed, often leading to contention between himself and other Fluxus artists. Maciunas articulated his beliefs in Fluxus manifestos, one existence that fine art, "at least its institutional forms," should be, "totally eliminated." Other Fluxus artists such as Jackson Mac Depression did not concord, in one case writing, "...I would non want to eliminate museums (I like museums)."

Maciunas was a bit of a volatile leader; he would indiscriminately expel individuals from Fluxus co-ordinate to his whims and had no qualms about dropping artists for the most petty of disagreements. In 1963, Maciunas removed Jackson Mac Low from the Fluxus group, and the post-obit year, expelled Dick Higgins, Alison Knowles, and Nam June Paik.

Essentially, while a group of artists who were all considered Fluxus existed, they did not all agree to the same ideals and each viewed Fluxus in a different fashion. As filmmaker George Brecht put information technology, "In Fluxus in that location has never been any attempt to agree on aims or methods; individuals with something unnamable in mutual have just coalesced to publish and perform their piece of work."

Fluxus events included audience participation as a way of involving the public in the making of art. Such was the 1970 Fluxfest Presentation of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, where Maciunas made paper masks of John Lennon and Yoko Ono for the audience to wear. With this act, Maciunas shifted the office of the viewer from observer to performer .The use of the audience as the focus of the piece was a logical extension of his thought that, "annihilation tin substitute for fine art and anyone tin practice information technology...the value of fine art-amusement must be lowered by making it unlimited, mass-produced, obtainable by all and eventually produced by all."

Although Fluxus is mainly known for performances and organized events, Fluxus artists also created more than plastic forms of art, such equally boxes filled with diverse items (often called Fluxkits), prints, and Fluxus films. Sometimes these works were not signed, as per Maciunas' belief that the ego of the artist should be removed from the artwork, meaning all pieces should exist signed as simply, "Fluxus."

Fluxus and Zen

Zen is a Japanese Buddhist philosophy that focuses on meditation and the importance of the present moment. No unmarried moment is to be more important than another in life. Zen had a powerful impact on John Cage who thought that art should be concerned with equivalency of values instead of elevating creative experiences from everyday experiences - "in this style art becomes important equally a means to make one aware of i'southward bodily environment." This comes directly from Buddhist teachings on the importance of being aware of every moment and present in every moment in life.

Fluxus artists sought to apply that philosophy to fine art. This idea comes from Muzzle'due south classes at the New School where some artists followed along these lines in their work related to Fluxus. Besides wanting to claiming the elitist art institutions, the other side of Fluxus was to reach a kind of enlightened state that involved art so much that art and life would meld into one, and there would be no distinction betwixt them. Although Maciunas one time stated that Fluxus was, "more like Zen than Dada." Maciunas himself was less concerned with the Zen aspect of things and more than concerned with a political, nonsensical, and anti-fine art opinion.

Later on Developments - After Fluxus

Fluxus arguably came to an end with the death of Maciunas in 1978. A "Fluxfuneral" was held, as had been requested by Maciunas, and put together by Geoffrey Hendricks, where several Fluxus artists performed. Afterwards in that location was a "Fluxfeast and Wake," where, in typical Fluxus fashion, all food was blackness, white or purple. This was the last major Fluxus upshot, although smaller episodes are occasionally held, even today.

The influence of Fluxus resonates throughout the arts specially with later incarnations of Performance art, Land fine art, and Graffiti and Street art, and those artists who deliberately piece of work outside established museum systems. An creative person similar Banksy is a skillful example of the continuation of the Fluxus philosophy.

Key Artists

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  George Maciunas was a founding member of Fluxus, an international community of artists, architects, composers, and designers. He is most famous for organizing and performing happenings and for assembling a serial of highly influential artists' multiples.

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  Yoko Ono is a Japanese-American artist, musician, writer, and peace activist, known for her work in avant-garde fine art, music and filmmaking as well as her matrimony to the lendary John Lennon. Ono was highly succcesful iin bringing feminism to the forefront of the art globe through her functioning and conceptual pieces.

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  Nam June Paik worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the first video artist. Paik is credited with coining the term "data thruway" and was known for making robots out of television sets.

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  Allan Kaprow was an American painter, collagist, assemblagist and performance artist. Kaprow was best known for trailblazing the artistic concept "happenings," which were experiential creative events rather than single works of art.

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  George Brecht'southward artworks and musical compositions offered a unlike edge than the artists of the time and Neo-Dada peers. And he fabricated important works constructed from everyday objects designed for viewer interaction.

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  Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese multimedia artist, best-known for her awe-inspiring and captivating installations of polka dots and psychedelic colors. Through her installations, poetry, paintings, performances, and film she importantly contributed to many of the post-state of war art movements.

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  Joseph Beuys was a German multi- and mixed-media artist all-time known for incorporating ideas of humanism, social philosophy and politics into his art. Beuys practiced everything from installation and performance art to traditional painting and "social sculpture." He was continually motivated past the belief of universal human creativity.

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  John Cage was an American composer and conceptual artist who incorporated chance, silence, and environmental furnishings into his performances. An of import art theorist, he influenced choreographers, musicians, and the Fluxus artists of the 1970s.

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  Walter de Maria is an American sculptor, composer, and multi-media artist whose best known work is The Lightning Field (1977), consisting of 400 lightning rods situated on a field in New Mexico.

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  Robert Morris is an American artist whose early L-axle and column sculptures were key works in Minimalism. His work as well includes felt and c pieces, operation, trunk fine art, and excavation, oftentimes with an emphasis on process and theatricality.

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  Carolee Schneemann is an American visual artist, known for her discourses on the body, sexuality and gender. Her work is primarily characterized by inquiry into visual traditions, taboos, and the body of the individual in relationship to social bodies. Schneemann's works have been associated with a variety of art classifications including Fluxus, Neo-Dada, the Beat Generation, and happenings.

Exercise Not Miss

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  The term "happening" was coined by artist Allan Kaprow in 1957 to decribe a serial of multi-media artworks on display in a single locale. In general, a happening is an fine art issue, often staged or pre-scripted, that requires active participation from an audition to come to full fruition. This relatively new class of artistic media could be called participatory.

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  Neo-Dada refers to works of art from the 1950s that apply popular imagery and mod materials, often resulting in something absurd. Neo-Dada is both a continuation of the before Dada move and an important forerunner to Pop fine art. Some important Neo-Dada artists include Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Robert Morris and Allan Kaprow.

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  British artists of the 1950s were the get-go to make pop culture the dominant subject field of their art, and this idea became an international phenomenon in the 1960s. But the Pop art movement is most associated with New York, and artists such equally Andy Warhol, who broke with the individual concerns of the Abstract Expressionists, and turned to themes which touched on public life and mass society.

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Source: https://www.theartstory.org/movement/fluxus/history-and-concepts/

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