Editing Fluxus (section)

==Early history: late 50s to 1965==

===Origins===
[[File:FluxYearBox2.jpg|280px|thumb|''Flux Year Box 2'', {{circa|1967}}, a Flux box edited and produced by George Maciunas, containing works by many early Fluxus artists]] 
The origins of Fluxus lie in many of the concepts explored by composer [[John Cage]] in his [[experimental music]] of the 1930s through the 1960s. After attending courses on [[Zen Buddhism]] taught by [[D. T. Suzuki]], Cage taught a series of classes in experimental composition from 1957 to 1959 at the [[New School for Social Research]] in New York City. These classes explored the notions of chance and [[Indeterminacy in music|indeterminacy]] in art, using music scores as a basis for compositions that could be performed in potentially infinite ways. Some of the artists and musicians who became involved in Fluxus, including [[Jackson Mac Low]], [[La Monte Young]], [[George Brecht]], [[Al Hansen]], and [[Dick Higgins]] attended Cage's classes.<ref>Maciunas himself joined the class in 1959–60, and was taught by Maxfield</ref>{{sfn|Brecht|Robinson|2005|p=28}} A major influence is found in the work of [[Marcel Duchamp]].<ref name="MOMA">{{Cite web |url=http://www.moma.org/collection/theme.php?theme_id=10457 |title=Michael Corris, MoMA, Grove Art Online, Oxford University Press, 2009 |access-date=12 June 2012 |archive-date=8 May 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150508010418/http://www.moma.org/collection/theme.php?theme_id=10457 |url-status=live }}</ref> Also of importance was ''Dada Poets and Painters'', edited by Robert Motherwell, a book of translations of Dada texts that was widely read by members of Fluxus.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Dada Painters And Poets: An Anthology|last=Motherwell|first=Robert and Jean Arp|publisher=Belknap Press Of Harvard University Press|year=1989|location=Cambridge, Mass}}</ref> The term [[anti-art]], a precursor to [[Dada]], was coined by Duchamp around 1913, when he created his first readymades from [[found object]]s (ordinary objects found or purchased and declared art).<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/a/anti-art |title=Anti-art, Art that challenges the existing accepted definitions of art, Tate |access-date=7 October 2015 |archive-date=5 April 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170405055113/http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/a/anti-art |url-status=live }}</ref> Indifferently chosen, [[Readymades of Marcel Duchamp|readymades]] and altered readymades challenged the notion of art as an inherently optical experience, dependent on academic art skills. The most famous example is Duchamp's altered readymade ''[[Fountain (Duchamp)|Fountain]]'' (1917), a work which he signed "R. Mutt." While taking refuge from WWI in New York, in 1915 Duchamp formed a Dada group with [[Francis Picabia]] and American artist [[Man Ray]]. Other key members included [[Arthur Cravan]], [[Florine Stettheimer]], and the [[Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven]], credited by some with proposing the idea for [[Fountain (Duchamp)|Fountain]] to Duchamp.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/06/arts/design/06dada.html|title=Dada's Women, Ahead of Their Time|work=[[The New York Times]]|last=Cotter|first=Holland|author-link=Holland Cotter|date=6 July 2006|access-date=17 May 2022|archive-date=4 January 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170104063747/http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/06/arts/design/06dada.html?_r=1|url-status=live}}</ref> By 1916 these artists, especially Duchamp, Man Ray, and Picabia, became the center for radical anti-art activities in New York City. Their artworks would inform Fluxus and [[conceptual art]] in general.<ref name="MOMA" /> In the late 1950s and very early 1960s, Fluxus and contemporaneous groups or movements, including [[Happenings]], [[Nouveau réalisme]], [[mail art]], and [[performance art|action art]] in Japan, Austria, and other international locations were, often placed under the rubric of [[Neo-Dada]]".<ref>Hapgood, Susan and Rittner, Jennifer. "Neo-Dada: Redefining Art, 1958–1962", ''[[Performing Arts Journal]]'', vol. 17, no. 1 (January 1995), pp. 63–70.</ref>

A number of other contemporary events are credited as either anticipating Fluxus or as constituting proto-Fluxus events.<ref name="MOMA" /> The most commonly cited include the series of Chambers Street loft concerts, in New York, curated by [[Yoko Ono]] and La Monte Young in 1961, featuring pieces by Ono, [[Jackson Mac Low]], [[Joseph Byrd]], and [[Henry Flynt]];<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.jeclique.com/onoweb/loftono.html |title=Performances at Yoko Ono's Chambers Street Loft |access-date=2 July 2012 |archive-date=10 April 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160410182850/http://www.jeclique.com/onoweb/loftono.html |url-status=live }}</ref> the month-long ''Yam'' festival held in upstate New York by George Brecht and [[Robert Watts (artist)|Robert Watts]] in May 1963 with [[Ray Johnson]] and [[Allan Kaprow]] (the culmination of a year's worth of [[Mail Art]] pieces);<ref name="MOMA" /> and a series of concerts held in [[Mary Bauermeister]]'s studio, Cologne, 1960–61, featuring [[Nam June Paik]] and John Cage among many others. It was at one of these events in 1960, during his Etude pour Piano, that Paik leapt into the audience and cut John Cage's tie off, ran out of the concert hall, and then phoned the hall's organisers to announce the piece had ended.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/exhibition/nam-june-paik/nam-june-paik-room-guide/nam-june-paik-section-2 |title=Tate, Nam June Paik, Fluxus, Performance, Participation |access-date=4 July 2012 |archive-date=4 March 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304111327/http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/exhibition/nam-june-paik/nam-june-paik-room-guide/nam-june-paik-section-2 |url-status=live }}</ref> As one of the movement's founders, Dick Higgins, stated:
<blockquote>Fluxus started with the work, and then came together, applying the name Fluxus to work which already existed. It was as if it started in the middle of the situation, rather than at the beginning.<ref>{{YouTube|9feLztCuQ18|1986 interview}}, [[Dick Higgins]] on Fluxus {{Cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9feLztCuQ18 |title=Dick Higgins on FLUXUS - YouTube |website=[[YouTube]] |date=15 March 2010 |access-date=27 November 2016 |archive-date=23 March 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170323115751/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9feLztCuQ18 |url-status=bot: unknown }}</ref><ref>Amongst the earliest pieces that would later be published by Fluxus were Brecht's event scores, the earliest of which dated from around 1958/9, and works such as Valoche, which had originally been exhibited in Brecht's solo show 'Toward's Events' at 1959.</ref>
</blockquote>

===Neo-Dada Anthology of Chance Operations to Early Fluxus===
In 1961 the American musician/artist [[La Monte Young]] had been enlisted to guest-edit an East Coast issue of the Wast Coast literary journal ''[[Beatitude (magazine)|Beatitude]]'' to be called ''Beatitude East''. But as the ''Beatitude'' connection was prematurly terminated, [[George Maciunas]], a trained [[graphic design]]er, asked Young if he could layout and help publish the [[Neo-Dada]] material.<ref>Colby Chamberlain, ''Fluxus Administration: George Maciunas and the Art of Paperwork'', University of Chicago Press, 2024, p. 4</ref> Maciunas supplied the paper, design, and some money for publishing the anthology which contained the work of New York [[avant-garde]] artists from that time. The project took the title of ''[[An Anthology of Chance Operations]]'' from its full title ''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''. ''An Anthology of Chance Operations'' was completed and published in 1963 by [[Jackson Mac Low]] and La Monte Young, as Maciunas had by then moved to Germany to escape his creditors.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/news-features/magazine/design-in-flux/. |title=Chamberlain, Colby. "Design in Flux" Art In America. 1 October 2014 |access-date=7 July 2015 |archive-date=8 July 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150708165151/http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/news-features/magazine/design-in-flux/ |url-status=live }}</ref> After opening a short-lived art gallery on [[Madison Avenue]], which showed work by [[Dick Higgins]], [[Yoko Ono]], [[Jonas Mekas]], [[Ray Johnson]], [[Henry Flynt]] and La Monte Young, Maciunas moved to [[Wiesbaden]], West Germany, having taken a job as a graphic designer with the [[US Air Force]] in late 1961{{sfn|Hendricks|1988|p=22}} after the gallery had gone bust. From Wiesbaden, Maciunas continued his contact with Young and other New York City-based artists and with expatriate American artists like [[Benjamin Patterson]] and [[Emmett Williams]], whom he met in Europe. By September 1962, Maciunas was joined by [[Dick Higgins]] and [[Alison Knowles]] who traveled to Europe to help him promote a second planned publication to be called '''Fluxus''', the first of a series of ''yearbooks'' of artists' works. Maciunas had first come up with the title ''Fluxus'' for a never done anthology of New York's [[Lithuania]]n artists, but instead applied the term to artists working in the ''Anthology of Chance Operations'' vein.<ref>Colby Chamberlain, ''Fluxus Administration: George Maciunas and the Art of Paperwork'', University of Chicago Press, 2024, p. 4</ref> Because after fleeing Lithuania at the end of [[World War II]], his family settled in New York, where he first met the group of avant-garde artists and musicians centered around [[John Cage]] and [[La Monte Young]]. Thus Maciunas coined the name ''Fluxus'' not for his perceived group of Lithuanian artists but for the [[Neo-Dada]] art being produced by a range of artists with a shared sensibility as an attempt to "fuse... cultural, social, & political revolutionaries into [a] united front and action".<ref>''Fluxus Manifesto'', 1963, by George Maciunas</ref> 

Maciunas first publicly coined the term ''Fluxus'' (meaning 'to flow') in a 'brochure prospectus' that he distributed to the audience at a festival he had organized, called ''Après Cage; Kleinen Sommerfest'' (After Cage; a Small Summer Festival), in [[Wuppertal]], West Germany, 9 June 1962.{{sfn|Hendricks|1988|p=91}}

Maciunas was an avid art historian, and initially referred to Fluxus as 'neo-dadaism' or 'renewed dadaism'.<ref>Maciunas, ''Fluxus Prospectus'', quoted in {{harvnb|Hendricks|1988|p=23}}</ref> He wrote a number of letters to [[Raoul Hausmann]], an original [[dada]]ist, outlining his ideas. Hausmann discouraged the use of the term;
<blockquote>
I note with much pleasure what you said about German neodadaists—but I think even the Americans should not use the term "neodadaism" because neo means nothing and -ism is old-fashioned. Why not simply "Fluxus"? It seems to me much better, because it's new, and dada is historic.<ref>Raoul Hausmann, quoted in {{harvnb|Maciunas|Ay-O|1998|p=40}}. Letter dated 4 November 1962, according to {{harvnb|Kellein|2007|loc=n. 47, p. 65}}</ref>
</blockquote>
As part of the festival, Maciunas wrote a lecture entitled 'Neo-Dada in the United States'.<ref>The lecture was actually given in German by Artus C Caspari</ref> After an attempt to define 'Concretist Neo-Dada' art, he explained that Fluxus was opposed to the exclusion of the everyday from art. Using 'anti-art and artistic banalities', Fluxus would fight the 'traditional artificialities of art'.<ref name=fluxus62>{{harvnb|Kellein|2007|p=62}}</ref> The lecture ended with the declaration "Anti-art is life, is nature, is true reality—it is one and all."<ref name=fluxus62/>

===European festivals and the Fluxkits===
[[File:PianoActivities.jpg|280px|left|thumb|''Piano Activities'', by [[Philip Corner]], as performed in Wiesbaden, 1962, by (l–r) [[Emmett Williams]], [[Wolf Vostell]], [[Nam June Paik]], [[Dick Higgins]], [[Benjamin Patterson]] and [[George Maciunas]]]]
In 1962, Maciunas, Higgins and Knowles traveled to Europe to promote the planned Fluxus publication with concerts of antique musical instruments. With the help of a group of artists including [[Joseph Beuys]] and [[Wolf Vostell]], Maciunas eventually organised a series of ''Fluxfests'' across Western Europe. Starting with 14 concerts between 1 and 23 September 1962, at [[Wiesbaden]], these ''Fluxfests'' presented work by musicians such as John Cage, [[György Ligeti|Ligeti]], [[Penderecki]], [[Terry Riley]] and [[Brion Gysin]] alongside [[Performance art|performance]] pieces written by Higgins, Knowles, George Brecht and [[Nam June Paik]], [[Ben Patterson]], [[Robert Filliou]], and [[Emmett Williams]], amongst many others. One performance in particular, ''Piano Activities'' by [[Philip Corner]], became notorious by challenging the important status of the piano in post-war German homes.

The score—which asks for any number of performers to, among other things, "play", "pluck or tap", "scratch or rub", "drop objects" on, "act on strings with", "strike soundboard, pins, lid or drag various kinds of objects across them" and "act in any way on underside of piano"<ref>[http://marcusboon.com/node/23 Marcus Boon] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101102022741/http://marcusboon.com/node/23 |date=2 November 2010 }}</ref>—resulted in the total destruction of a piano when performed by Maciunas, Higgins and others at Wiesbaden. The performance was considered scandalous enough to be shown on German television four times, with the introduction "The lunatics have escaped!"<ref>"Die Irren sind los" quoted in {{harvnb|Kellein|2007|p=65}}</ref>
<blockquote>At the end we did Corner's ''Piano Activities'' not according to his instructions since we systematically destroyed a piano which I bought for $5 and had to have it all cut up to throw it away, otherwise we would have had to pay movers, a very practical composition, but German sentiments about this "instrument of Chopin" were hurt and they made a row about it...<ref>George Maciunas, letter to [[La Monte Young]], 1962, quoted in {{harvnb|Maciunas|Ay-O|1998|p=53}}</ref>
</blockquote>
At the same time, Maciunas used his connections at work to start printing cheap mass-produced books and multiples by some of the artists that were involved in the performances. The first three to be printed were ''Composition 1961'' by La Monte Young ([https://web.archive.org/web/20150722033506/http://archives.carre.pagesperso-orange.fr/Young%20La%20Monte.html see it here], ''An Anthology of Chance Operations'' edited by Young and Mac Low and ''[[Water Yam (artist's book)|Water Yam]]'', by George Brecht. ''Water Yam'', a series of event scores printed on small sheets of card and collected together in a cardboard box, was the first in a series of artworks that Maciunas printed that became known as ''Fluxkits''. Cheap, mass-produced and easily distributed, ''Fluxkits'' were originally intended to form an ever-expanding library of modern [[performance art]]. ''Water Yam'' was published in an edition of 1000 and originally cost $4.<ref>Price listed in the ''Fluxus Preview Review'', July 1963, quoted in {{harvnb|Hendricks|1988|p=217}}</ref> By April 1964, almost a year later, Maciunas still had 996 copies unsold.<ref>Maciunas, letter to Emmett Williams, quoted in {{harvnb|Maciunas|Ay-O|1998|p=106}}</ref>

Maciunas' original plan had been to design, edit and pay for each edition himself, in exchange for the copyright to be held by the collective.{{sfn|Hendricks|1988|p=24}}{{sfn|Kellein|2007|p=69}} Profits were to be split 80/20 at first, in favor of the artist.<ref>This was to go down to 50/50 within a year{{harvnb|Kellein|2007|p=88}}</ref> Since most of the composers already had publishing deals, Fluxus quickly moved away from music toward performance and visual art. John Cage, for instance, never published work under the Fluxus moniker due to his contract with the music publishers [[Edition Peters]].<ref>Maciunas sent out letters to 20 international artists between late 62 and early 63, demanding each artist relinquish any publishing rights and have Fluxus as sole and exclusive publisher. Maciunas likened his agreement to Cage's arrangement with Peters Editions. Only two artists—[[Henry Flynt]] and [[Thomas Schmit]] signed up. Cage was not asked, due at least on Maciunas' side, to the aforesaid contract with editions peters. {{harvnb|Kellein|2007|pp=69–71}}</ref>
<blockquote>Maciunas seemed to have a fantastic ability to get things done.... if you had things to be printed he could get them printed. It's pretty hard in East Brunswick to get good offset printing. It's not impossible, but it's not so easy, and since I'm very lazy it was a relief to find somebody who could take the burden off my hands. So there was this guy Maciunas, a Lithuanian or Bulgarian, or somehow a refugee or whatever—beautifully dressed—"astonishing looking" would be a better adjective. He was somehow able to carry the whole thing off, without my having to go 57 miles to find a printer.<ref>George Brecht, "An Interview with Robin Page for [[Carla Liss]]", In ''Art And Artists'', London October 1972, pp. 30–31 reprinted in {{harvnb|Maciunas|Ay-O|1998|pp=109–110}}</ref>
</blockquote>
Since Maciunas was [[colorblind]], Fluxus multiples were almost always black and white.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/05/24/arts/art-in-review-069620.html|title=Art in Review: The man who organized Fluxus|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date=24 May 1996 |access-date=17 May 2022|archive-date=27 June 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170627120907/http://www.nytimes.com/1996/05/24/arts/art-in-review-069620.html |url-status=live|last=Cotter|first=Holland|author-link=Holland Cotter}}</ref>

===New York and the FluxShops===
[[File:DeRidder'sFluxMailOrder.jpg|upright|left|thumb|[[Willem de Ridder]]'s Mail Order FluxShop, Amsterdam, with Dorothea Meijer, winter 1964–65]]
After his contract with the US Air Force was terminated due to ill health, Maciunas was forced to return to the US on 3 September 1963.{{sfn|Maciunas|Ay-O|1998|p=340}} Once back in New York, he set about organizing a series of street concerts and opened a new shop, the 'Fluxhall', on [[Canal Street (Manhattan)|Canal Street]].
12 concerts, "away from the beaten track of the New York art scene",<ref name=fluxus93>{{harvnb|Kellein|2007|p=93}}</ref> took place on Canal Street, 11 April to 23 May 1964. With photographs taken by Maciunas himself, pieces by [[Ben Vautier]], [[Alison Knowles]] and [[Takehisa Kosugi]] were performed in the street for free, although in practice there was 'no audience to speak of'<ref name=fluxus93/> anyway.
<blockquote>
The people in Fluxus had understood, as Brecht explained, that "concert halls, theaters, and art galleries" were "mummifying". Instead, these artists found themselves "preferring streets, homes, and railway stations...." Maciunas recognized a radical political potential in all this forthrightly anti-institutional production, which was an important source for his own deep commitment to it. Deploying his expertise as a professional graphic designer, Maciunas played an important role in projecting upon Fluxus whatever coherence it would later seem to have had.{{sfn|Brecht|Robinson|2005|p=118}}
</blockquote>
Along with the New York shop, Maciunas built up a distribution network for the new art across Europe and later outlets in California and Japan. Gallery and mail order outlets were established in Amsterdam, Villefranche-Sur-Mer, Milan and London, amongst others.{{sfn|Kellein|2007|p=109}} By 1965, the first anthology ''[[Fluxus 1]]'' was available, consisting of manila envelopes bolted together containing work by numerous artists who would later become famous including La Monte Young, [[Christo]], [[Joseph Byrd]] and Yoko Ono. Other pieces available included packs of altered playing cards by George Brecht, sensory boxes by [[Ay-O]], a regular newsletter with contributions by artists and musicians such as [[Ray Johnson]] and John Cale, and tin cans filled with poems, songs and recipes about beans by [[Alison Knowles]] ([http://www.aknowles.com/beanrolls.html see]).

===Stockhausen's ''Originale''===
[[File:FluxusTraitor.jpg|280px|thumb|''Traitor, you left Fluxus!'', a postcard sent by George Maciunas to Nam June Paik, c late 1964, after the latter's involvement with Stockhausen's ''Originale'']]
After returning to New York, Maciunas became reacquainted with Henry Flynt,<ref>At the time, a member of the leftist set WWP.{{harvnb|Maciunas|Ay-O|1998|p=108}}</ref> who encouraged members of Fluxus to take a more overtly political stance. One of the results of these discussions was to set up a picket line at the American premiere of ''[[Originale]]'', a recent work by the German composer [[Karlheinz Stockhausen]], 8 September 1964.<ref name=":Bloch">[http://www.panmodern.com/OnStockhausen-sOriginale.pdf Bloch, Mark. "On Originale.", from Bloch, Mark, editor] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924063736/http://www.panmodern.com/OnStockhausen-sOriginale.pdf |date=24 September 2015 }}. "Robert Delford Brown: Meat, Maps and Militant Metaphysics", Cameron Museum of Art, Wilmington, North Carolina, 2008.</ref> Stockhausen was deemed a 'Cultural Imperialist' by Maciunas and Flynt, while other members vehemently disagreed. The result was members of Fluxus, such as Nam June Paik and Jackson Mac Low, crossing a picket line made up of other members, including Ben Vautier and [[Takako Saito]]{{sfn|Kellein|2007|p=98}} who handed out leaflets denouncing Stockhausen as "a characteristic European-North American ruling-class Artist".<ref>"Picket Stockhausen Concert!", [[Henry Flynt|Flynt]] and [[George Maciunas|Maciunas]] flyer, 1964. Reproduced{{Full citation needed|date=July 2015|reason=Something got chopped off here.}}</ref> Dick Higgins participated in the picket, and then coolly joined the other performers inside;<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.ubu.com/film/stockhausen_originale.html |title=A film of the event, UbuWeb |access-date=15 June 2012 |archive-date=10 February 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120210203729/http://www.ubu.com/film/stockhausen_originale.html |url-status=live }}</ref>
<blockquote>
Maciunas and his friend Henry Flynt tried to get the Fluxus people to march around outside the circus with white cards that said Originale was bad. And they tried to say that the Fluxus people who were in the circus weren't Fluxus any more. That was silly, because it made a split. I thought it was funny, and so first I walked around with Maciunas and with Henry with a card, then I went inside and joined the circus; so both groups got angry with me. Oh well. Some people say that Fluxus died that day—I once thought so myself—but it turned out I was wrong.<ref>[[Dick Higgins]], [http://www.artnotart.com/fluxus/dhiggins-childshistory.html "A Child's History of Fluxus"], 1979. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120622030429/http://www.artnotart.com/fluxus/dhiggins-childshistory.html |date=22 June 2012 }}</ref>
</blockquote>
The event, arranged by [[Charlotte Moorman]] as part of her ''2nd Annual New York Avant Garde Festival'', would cement animosities between Maciunas and her,{{sfn|Kellein|2007|loc=n. 104, p. 98}} with Maciunas frequently demanding that artists associated with Fluxus have nothing to do with the annual festival, and would often expel artists who ignored his demands. This hostility continued throughout Maciunas' life—much to Moorman's bemusement—despite her continued championing of Fluxus art and artists.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiEJdOlgcDE |title=Charlotte Moorman and Nam June Paik "The Originale" |website=[[YouTube]] |access-date=27 November 2016 |archive-date=31 December 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181231083801/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiEJdOlgcDE |url-status=live }}</ref>