CAGE & Co
Happening, Fluxus & Intermedia in Print / 1958-1978
Exactly 60 years ago, in October 1959, the American painter Allan Kaprow organized 18 Happenings in Six Parts at the Reuben Gallery in New York. This is the first documented use of the word “happening”. Kaprow was inspired by the avant-garde composer John Cage, whose classes on experimental music he had attended the year before. These legendary “Cage classes” were attended mainly by poets and painters rather than musicians, turning the classes into a breeding ground for mixed media art forms such as Happening, Fluxus Events and Intermedia Art.
The name “Fluxus” was coined around 1962 in New York by the Lithuanian artist and graphic designer George Maciunas for an experimental magazine that he intended to launch with a series of avant-garde concerts. “Intermedia” on the other hand was invented by the American poet, performer and publisher Dick Higgins, who was likewise a student of Cage. Higgins thought that the most interesting new art was to be found in between the existing media poetry, theatre performance, music and the visual arts. Higgins was to publish the work of his peers through his own Something Else Press.
Experiences, energy and interactions
In Europe, the German artist and designer Wolf Vostell preferred the word “Dé-collage” for his own events and publications and those of his fellow artists, whereas the French artist Ben Vautier (aka Ben) promoted a radical and encompassing “Art Total”. Apart from the plethora of names, most of the work produced and published by these artists can be characterized as light, humorous, ephemeral, iconoclastic, anti-institutional and anti-bourgeois. In this respect it echoes the work of the earlier Dada movement of the 1920s.
Like Dada, an international, loosely knit network of poets, performers, composers and visual artists emerged in the 1960s. Their work materialized in countless concerts, events, actions and publications, all of them the result of close interdisciplinary collaboration. Nothing they produced was intended to be permanent. Experiences, energy and interactions were the main intention. The process was more important than the product. When the piece was finished, it disappeared.
Photographs, recordings and publications are all that remains of this frenetic activity. They are snapshots of events that only can provide a hint of the original experience. On the other hand, the printed output of the Happening, Fluxus and Intermedia years reveals an artistic and graphic quality that has the potential to inform and inspire a new generation of artists, performers and designers. Experimental writers and graphic designers today are now rediscovering the power and directness of these publications of the artists of the sixties.
Questioning the boundaries
Visual and performing artists seem to be recovering an interest in spontaneous and time and site-specific collaborations. Questioning the boundaries between art forms, but also between artists and their audiences, the work of the Happening, Fluxus and Intermedia artists reveals a radical and investigative attitude. That is why CRAP! (Collection for Research on Artist's Publications) presents a selection of documents and publications of the Happening, Fluxus and Intermedia network of the 1960s. As such, it follows earlier presentations of the ZERO and COBRA networks at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts.
The exhibition covers the years between 1958 (the experimental music class by Cage) and 1978 (the death of George Maciunas). Starting with the influential writings and publications of Cage, it shows anthologies, magazines, catalogues, invitation cards, flyers, artists' books and ephemera containing works, sounds and statements of the most influential artists of the era. The US is represented by work by George Brecht, Dick Higgins, Alison Knowles, Allan Kaprow, George Maciunas, Claes Oldenburg, LaMonte Young, Emmett Williams and Yoko Ono, whereas the published work of Ben Vautier, Robert Filliou, Dieter Roth, Daniel Spoerri and Wolf Vostell is used to present the European scene. Apart from the printed output of these artists, there will be a permanent screening of Fluxus films and audio-documentation of various Fluxus acoustic pieces and music.
Written by Johan Pas in the context of ARTICULATE, festival for arts and research. He curates an exhibition during the festival, on show from 23 to 25 October, and gives a talk about his Fluxus collection on October 23.
Image: george maciunas fluxus prospectus 1965, collection johan pas
