The work has become famous as an early example of conceptual art, and as one of the defining products of the Fluxus collective.[2]
Early fluxus
A single page from An Anthology, by La Monte Young and Jackson Mac Low, 1963. Designed and printed by George Maciunas.
The AG Gallery and proposals for a Yearbox
Maciunas had originally set up the AG Gallery, 925 Madison Avenue, New York City, to exhibit abstract art and to sell ancient musical instruments; upon meeting La Monte Young and Richard Maxfield in late 1960, however, he 'was suddenly confronted with the most radical ideas in art.' Overnight, the gallery was transformed into a greenhouse for 'the germination of Fluxus',[3] hosting events by Dick Higgins, Jackson Mac Low, Yoko Ono, La Monte Young and others. All of these artists would be included in the forthcoming Fluxus 1; the first known mention of the name Fluxus came on the invitation cards to 3 events held at the gallery, Spring 1961, in which guests were asked to contribute $3 to 'help publish Fluxus magazine'.[4]
The gallery had gone bankrupt by mid 1961; to avoid his creditors, Maciunas took a job working for the US Army as a freelance designer in Wiesbaden, West Germany. He took many of the scores collected by La Monte Young for AN ANTHOLOGY, and whilst working on the design and printing for that, also began work on his own anthology Fluxus 1. Modelled in many ways on An Anthology, both works would prove difficult to publish. AN ANTHOLOGY appeared in Spring 1963; Most of Fluxus 1 was printed by the same German printers contemporaneously, but Maciunas doesn't seem to have put any copies together until sometime in early 1964, by which time he'd left his job in Germany due to bad health and had returned to New York. His letters leave a paper trail of torturous dealings with German printers;
Fluxus 1 deadline is now closed, (all works are at the printer who is scratching his head to the bone.) It should be out in Jan ...
Please accept our belated acknowledgement of your order for Fluxus 1 yearbook. Due to financial difficulties, this fat book will not be issued but the contents will be included in the monthly Fluxus newspaper ...
FLUXUS 1964 EDITIONS, AVAILABLE NOW ... Fluxus 1 Anthology of yet unpublished works ... Loose leaf binding (nonperiodically renewable), with objects in wood box $6
Originally intended as a six-part series of yearboxes covering America (1), Northern Europe (2), Japan (3), 'Homage To The Past' (4), Southern Europe (5) and Eastern Europe (6), only Fluxus 1 was actually published; whilst predominantly anthologising American artists, both European and Japanese artists were included from material that had originally been intended for other volumes in the series. The book originally sold for $6, with a 'Luxus Fluxus' edition costing $12 containing 'film, tape, objects and accessories' [6]
Fluxus, collectivism & Anti-art
Amongst many other influences, Maciunas was directly inspired by LEF, the communist journal founded by Mayakovsky and Ossip Brik; an artistic organisation aimed at unifying left-wing artists to help build the newly emerging communist state in Russia.[7]Fluxus 1 was Maciunas' first attempt at creating a coherent collective voice, an attempt to erode the artist's status as heroic individual & his first attempt to 'communicate the concept of the self-sufficiency of the audience, an art where anything can substitute for an art work and anyone can produce it.' [8]
In a lecture given on the June 9, 1962, Wuppertal, West Germany, to coincide with the launch of the Brochure Prospectus for the Fluxus Yearboxes, Maciunas stated that;
The anti-art forms are primarily directed against art as a profession, against the artificial separation of producer or performer, of generator and spectator or against the separation of art and life. They oppose forms artificial in themselves, models or methods of composition, of artificially constructed phenomena in the various areas of artistic practice, against intentional, conscious formalism and against the fixation of art on meaning, against the demand of music to be heard and that of plastic art to be seen; and finally against the thesis that both should be acknowledged and understood. Anti-art is life, nature; true reality is the one and all. The bird song is anti-art. The pouring rain, the chattering of an impatient audience, sneeze noises ... or compositions like "letting a butterfly caught in a net fly away" or "what an audience left to its own devices does for amusement"- all of these examples may be viewed in this sense as anti-art.[9]
Maciunas sent out requests for 'critical or non-critical, rational or irrational essays'; scores, instructions ... visual compositions for reproductions, collages, photographs ... solid objects, scraps, smears, junk, garbage, rags, ready-makes (sic), found objects ... or an object (like a flat painting) cut into 200 parts.' [10] As the yearbox developed, Maciunas became increasingly interested in what he referred to as 'Concretism', derived from Duchamp's ideas about the 'readymade'. In effect, concretism refers to works that don't attempt to transform themselves; objects such as George Brecht's Exit that remains resolutely a sign indicating the exit.
The best Fluxus 'Composition' is a most non-personal, 'readymade' one like Brecht's 'Exit'—it does not require any of us to perform it since it happens daily without any 'special' performance of it. Thus our festivals will eliminate themselves (and our need to participate) when they become total readymades (like Brecht's exit) [11]
The book itself
2 versions of a single page from Fluxus 1, A Favorite Song by Joe Jones, next to a version of the same from a copy of the slightly later Fluxkit. These copies in the Silverman collection.
The book consists of a number of envelopes bound together by metal bolts, each containing printed works by a single artist. Some copies have the names of the works and of the artists printed onto the envelopes; others are hand-stamped. There is a printed folded sheet attached featuring Maciunas' typographic representations of each artist's name, and the whole book is contained in a wooden case sprayed with the title. The box was used, in part, to facilitate sending the work by post. A number of copies have the recipient's address written directly onto the cover.
Contents might include: a Finger Envelope by Ay-O featuring an envelope with a slit in it containing a nylon stocking; A Favorite Song by Joe Jones containing 'a scramble of used music typewriter ribbons';[12]Disappearing Music for Envelopes by Mieko Shiomi consisting of a sequence of envelopes of diminishing sizes within each other; the music score for Trois Bagatelles by Györgi Ligeti; or An Opera (see ), a short story written on a long scroll by Emmett Williams.
Copies of Fluxus 1 were assembled over a period of 13 years, and whilst the form and much of the content remained fairly stable, 'Maciunas' attitude toward certain artists and/or works in the anthology changed, some works got lost or mislaid, and others ran out of stock.' [13] Marginal figures in Fluxus, such as Giuseppe Chiari and Sohei Hashimoto, were dropped in favour of artists such as Yoko Ono and the Hi Red Center, whilst Dick Higgins is noticeable by his absence after a feud with Maciunas over the setting up of the Something Else Press.
There are thought to be more than a hundred boxes manufactured between 1964 and 1977 in New York, and a further one hundred or so pieced together in Amsterdam by Willem De Ridder, for sale in the european Flux Mail Order Shop.[14][15]
↑ cc Valise e TRanglE, Fluxus Newspaper no3, march 1964 quoted in Fluxus Codex, p108
↑ "Fluxus objectives are social (not aesthetic). They are connected to the group of LEF group of 1929 (sic) in Soviet Union (ideologically) and concern itself with: Gradual elimination of fine arts (music, theatre, poetry, fiction, painting, sculpture etc. etc.) ... Thus Fluxus is definitely against art-object as non-functional commodity - to be sold & to make livelihood for an artist. It could temporarily have the pedagogical function of teaching people the needlessness of itself. It should not be therefore permanent ... Fluxus therefore is ANTIPROFESSIONAL (against professional art or artists making livelihood from art or artists spending their full time, their life on art.) Secondly FLUXUS is against artas medium or vehicle promoting artist's ego, since applied art should express the objective problem to be solved not artist's personality or his ego. Fluxus should therefore tend towards collective spirit, anonymity and ANTI-INDIVIDUALISM ..... These Fluxus concerts, publications etc - are at best transitional (a few years) & temporary until such time when art can be totally eliminated (or at least its institutional forms) and artists find other employment." George Maciunas, January 1964 Quoted in Fluxus Codex, Hendricks, Harry N Abrams p37
Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finished product. Fluxus is known for experimental contributions to different artistic media and disciplines and for generating new art forms. These art forms include intermedia, a term coined by Fluxus artist Dick Higgins; conceptual art, first developed by Henry Flynt;, an artist often mistakenly labelled as Fluxus though he considers himself to be extremely separate from the label, and video art, first pioneered by Nam June Paik and Wolf Vostell. Dutch gallerist and art critic Harry Ruhé describes Fluxus as "the most radical and experimental art movement of the sixties."
Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called installations, may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions. This method was fundamental to American artist Sol LeWitt's definition of conceptual art, one of the first to appear in print:
In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art.
Henry Flynt is a philosopher, avant-garde musician, anti-art activist and exhibited artist often associated with Conceptual Art, Fluxus and Nihilism.
Artists' books are works of art that utilize the form of the book. They are often published in small editions, though they are sometimes produced as one-of-a-kind objects.
Alfred Earl "Al" Hansen was an American artist. He was a member of Fluxus, a movement that originated on an artists' collective around George Maciunas.
George Maciunas was a Lithuanian American artist, born in Kaunas. He was a founding member and the central coordinator of Fluxus, an international community of artists, architects, composers, and designers. Other leading members brought together by this movement included Ay-O, Joseph Beuys, Jonas Mekas, George Brecht, Dick Higgins, Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik and Wolf Vostell.
Neo-Dada was a movement with audio, visual and literary manifestations that had similarities in method or intent with earlier Dada artwork. It sought to close the gap between art and daily life, and was a combination of playfulness, iconoclasm, and appropriation. In the United States the term was popularized by Barbara Rose in the 1960s and refers primarily, although not exclusively, to work created in that and the preceding decade. There was also an international dimension to the movement, particularly in Japan and in Europe, serving as the foundation of Fluxus, Pop Art and Nouveau réalisme.
Alison Knowles is an American visual artist known for her installations, performances, soundworks, and publications. Knowles was a founding member of the Fluxus movement, the experimental avant-garde group formally founded in 1962. Criteria that have come to distinguish her work as an artist are the arena of performance, the indeterminacy of her event scores resulting in the deauthorization of the work, and the element of tactile participation. She graduated from Pratt Institute in New York with an honors degree in fine art. In May 2015, she was awarded an honorary doctorate degree by Pratt.
George Brecht, born George Ellis MacDiarmid, was an American conceptual artist and avant-garde composer, as well as a professional chemist who worked as a consultant for companies including Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and Mobil Oil. He was a key member of, and influence on, Fluxus, the international group of avant-garde artists centred on George Maciunas, having been involved with the group from the first performances in Wiesbaden 1962 until Maciunas' death in 1978.
Takao Iijima, better known by his art name Ay-O, is a Japanese artist who has been associated with Fluxus since its international beginnings in the 1960s.
Grapefruit is an artist's book written by Yoko Ono, originally published in 1964. It has become famous as an early example of conceptual art, containing a series of "event scores" that replace the physical work of art – the traditional stock-in-trade of artists – with instructions that an individual may, or may not, wish to enact.
Grapefruit is one of the monuments of conceptual art of the early 1960s. She has a lyrical, poetic dimension that sets her apart from the other conceptual artists. Her approach to art was only made acceptable when white men like Kosuth and Weiner came in and did virtually the same thing as Yoko, but made them respectable and collectible.
Water Yam is an artist's book by the American artist George Brecht. Originally published in Germany, June 1963 in a box designed by George Maciunas and typeset by Tomas Schmit, it has been re-published in various countries several times since. It is now considered one of the most influential artworks released by Fluxus, the internationalist avant-garde art movement active predominantly in the 1960s and '70s. The box, sometimes referred to as a Fluxbox or Fluxkit, contains a large number of small printed cards, containing instructions known as event-scores, or fluxscores. Typically open-ended, these scores, whether performed in public, private or left to the imagination, leave a lot of space for chance and indeterminancy, forcing a large degree of interpretation upon the performers and audience.
In some cases [event-scores] would arise out of the creation of the object, while in others the object was discovered and Brecht subsequently wrote a score for it, thus highlighting the relationship between language and perception. Or, in the words of the artist, "ensuring that the details of everyday life, the random constellations of objects that surround us, stop going unnoticed." The event-score was as much a critique of conventional artistic representation as it was a gesture of firm resistance against individual alienation.
Joe Jones was an American avant-garde musician associated with Fluxus especially known for his creation of rhythmic music machines.
Spice Chess is an artist's multiple by the Japanese artist Takako Saito, while she was resident in the United States. Originally manufactured winter 1964-65, and offered for sale March 1965, the work is one of a famous series of disrupted chess sets referred to as Fluxchess or Flux Chess, made for George Maciunas' Fluxshop at his Canal Street loft, SoHo, New York City and later through his Fluxus Mail-Order Warehouse.
"Takako Saito engaged with Duchamp's practice but also with masculinist cold war metaphors by taking up chess as a subject of [her] art. Saito's fluxchess works... question the primacy of vision to chess, along with notions of perception and in aesthetic experience more generally.... Her "Smell Chess," "Sound Chess" and "Weight Chess" reworked the game of chess so that players would be forced to hone non-visual perception, such as the olfactory sense, tactility, and aurality, in order to follow chess rules." Claudia Mesch
Takako Saito is a Japanese artist. Closely associated with Fluxus, the international collective of avant-garde artists that was active primarily in the 1960s and 1970s, Saito contributed a number of performances and artworks to the movement, which continue to be exhibited in Fluxus exhibitions to the present day. She currently lives in Düsseldorf in Germany. She is most famous for pieces like Silent Music or for her special Chess sets.
Robert Watts was an American artist best known for his work as a member of the international group of artists Fluxus. Born in Burlington, Iowa June 14, 1923, he became Professor of Art at Douglass College, Rutgers University, New Jersey in 1953, a post he kept until 1984. In the 1950s, he was in close contact with other teachers at Rutgers including Allan Kaprow, Geoffrey Hendricks and Roy Lichtenstein. This has led some critics to claim that pop art and conceptual art began at Rutgers.
The Ministry of Fluxus is an inclusive, publicly accessible art project in Lithuania.
Mieko (Chieko) Shiomi is a Japanese artist and composer.
An Anthology of Chance Operations was an artist's book publication from the early 1960s of experimental neodada art and music composition that used John Cage-inspired indeterminacy. It was edited by La Monte Young and DIY co-published in 1963 by Young and Jackson Mac Low in New York City. Its full title is: An Anthology of chance operations concept art anti-art indeterminacy improvisation meaningless work natural disasters plans of action stories diagrams Music poetry essays dance constructions mathematics compositions.
Larry Miller is an American artist, most strongly linked to the Fluxus movement after 1969. He is "an intermedia artist whose work questions the borders between artistic, scientific and theological disciplines. He was in the vanguard of using DNA and genetic technologies as new art media." Electronic Arts Intermix, a pioneering international resource for video and media art has said, "Miller has produced a diverse body of experimental art works as a key figure in the emergent installation and performance movements in New York in the 1970s... His installations and performances have integrated diverse mediums [sic] and materials."
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