FLUXUS “The idea of creating a store—a blatant mix of art and commerce where artists could take charge of distribution and make their inexpensive work accessible—also ap- pealed to the Fluxus artists, who opened a “Fluxshop” in 1964 to sell their art and multiples. Fluxus, a loosely organized international art movement, had emerged in the early sixties. The name Fluxus was coined in 1961 by George Maciunas, a Lithuanian-born artist living in New York. Maciunas was the chief promoter and impresario of Fluxus, and he created a manifesto using the dictionary défini- tion of flux: “Act of flowing: a contin uous moving on or passing by, as of a flowing stream; a continuing succession of changes.””' Fluxus echoed the Neo- Dada, anti-art sentiment of so much art of the time and was also indebted to John Cage. Indeed, many of the American artists associated with Fluxus (Dick Higgins, Al Hansen, George Brecht, Jackson Mac Low, La Monte Young) had also studied with Cage at the New School for Social Research. ‘Though much of Fluxus was expressed through publications, objects, and events, it originated in avant-garde music. In fact, it was the first avant- garde movement of the century driven by music. Maciunas began to organize concerts in 1961 at his AG Gallery in New York; when he moved to Wiesbaden, Germany, the following year, he called them Flux Festivals, The festivals became a forum where a loose association of artists from France, Germany, Denmark, the United States, Japan, and Korea began to form their Fluxus identity. Fluxus, true to its name, was not easily contained geographically on, for that matter, easily defined—its spatial and temporal boundaries were deliberately ambiguous. One of the early participants in the Nam June Paik Flux Festivals was Nam June Paik, a Korean-born artist who had been a student of Head, 1962 of La Monte esition 1960 through the German experimental music scene. At the first Flux Festival, in 1962 ve Moris s¢%© in Wiesbaden, Paik dipped his head, tie, and hands in a mixture of ink and tomato Neuster Musit, tice and dragged them along a length of paper. This event, Zen for Head, was = Paik’s interpretation of La Monte Young's earlier score Composition 1960 #10 to Bob Morris, whose instructions read, “Draw a straight line and follow it” (fig. 154). As a performance based on a score that produced a visual object, Zen for Head perfectly encapsulated the transformative spirit of Fluxus. avant-garde music. In the late fifties, Pail, then living in Cologne, met John Cageoverall whitney Museum of Art, New York nase, with funds from Dieter Rosenkrat jab159. Fluxus Flux Year Box 2, ¢. 1968 Wood boxes with mixed media, 8 x 8 x 2% in. (203x203 x86 em) The Gilbert and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection, Detroit"In another work, Paik, taking cues from Cage’s notion of the prepared piano— objects placed on or between the strings (fig. 155)—made elaborate assemblages from three pianos, which were then to be performed on (Eig. 157). One of the per- formers was the German artist Joseph Beuys, who hacked a piano apart with an ax. Paik soon extended this practice to “prepared” televisions, in which objects such as magnets affected the pattern on the screen (fig. 156). Creation and destruc~ tion were part of one continuous cycle in Fluxus philosophy. Taking further impetus from Cage, specifically his idea of the conceptual score, many Fluxus artists, including Paik, George Brecht, La Monte Young, and Yoko Ono, created scores for music-performance events in which a simple, Zen-like phrase served as the instructions. These scores were for single-gesture actions in which personal interpretation, chance operations, and audience participation determined the result, Brecht’s Drip Music (Drip Event) score, for instance, reads, “For single or multiple performance. A source of dripping water and an empty vessel are arranged so that the water falls into the vessel. Second version: Dripping,” Yoko Ono held performance and music events in her downtown loft beginning in 1961. One of her works, Sun Piece, instructs, “Watch the sun until it be~ comes square.” Scores by other artists called for climbing into a bathtub full of water or releasing butterflies into the performance area. Nam June Paik performed a piece in which the cellist Charlotte Moorman used his body as an instrument (fig. 160). What these Fluxus pieces tested was the minimum requirement for music. Some Fluxus artists also made Fluxfilms that, like these events, concentrated on one performative action, Meanwhile, Maciunas dedicated himself to publishing and creating editions and multiples: Fluxkits, Fluxboxes, Fluxyearbooks (figs. 158, 159). They contained games, puzzles, event scores, and loose printed materials by Fluxus artists, all assembled in boxes that were sold in the Fluxshop or through mail order. Although the most productive phase of Fluxus was from 1962 to 1964, its spirit lived on. The sparse and conceptual aesthetic of Fluxus—in contrast to the spontaneous experience of the Abstract Expressionists, the Beats, and most of the artists in- volved with Happenings—provided an important precedent for Conceptual art and Minimalism. But because its boundaries were always in flux, it has often, been omitted from official histories of art. To revise these histories, Fluxus must be seen together with Happenings, the Beats, and assemblage as creative inven- tions that ushered in the real world and brought high art into the realm of every- day life.