Fluxus East. Fluxus Networks in Central Eastern Europe
Location: 5th floor, Gallery of Contemporary Art
Fluxus is well-known as an (anti-)artistic, international network with centres in the USA, Western Europe and Japan. But what about this “intermedia” art – encompassing music, actions, poetry, objects and events – beyond the “Iron Curtain”? What echo did Fluxus find in the states of the former Eastern Bloc, which contacts between Fluxus artists and local artists emerged, and what parallel developments existed there?
As a “programme of action”, Fluxus – according to its self-styled “chairman”, the exiled Lithuanian George Maciunas, in a letter to Nikita Khrushchev – was predestined to bring about unity between the “concretist” artists of the world and the “concretist” society of the USSR. Maciunas planned Fluxus as a collective based on the model of the Russian LEF (Left Front of the Arts). But these plans – e. g. for a performance tour by the artists on the Trans-Siberian Railway –, developed with polished communist rhetoric in manifestos and letters, were to remain no more than a utopia.
After 1962, a different Fluxus East developed through creative exchange between Fluxus artists and artists/musicians of the former Eastern Bloc. Fluxus was received in many different ways, sometimes through personal contacts, leading to very different Fluxus activitiesons. These included a few concerts with Fluxus compositions organized by the Experimental Studio of the Polish Radio (1964), and organized through Józef Patkowski, a journey by Danish Fluxus artist Eric Andersen through several Eastern European countries with performances in private apartments, Fluxus concerts in Lithuania, (organized by Vytautas Landsbergis, George Maciunas’ former school pal in 1966), in Prague (in 1966, organized by Milan Knížák, who was appointed” “Director Fluxus East”” by Maciunas) and in Budapest (in 1969, Tamás St. Auby organized a concert without personal contact withto Fluxus artists, using a compilation of Fluxus scores, 1969), and later in a Fluxus Festival in Poznań (1977), organized by Jarosław Kozłowski, in the Galeria Akumulatory 2.
Apart from Fluxus concerts, there wereas a considerable number of solo exhibitions and performances by Fluxus artists, especially in Poland up tountil 1989. Aside from Emmett Williams and Geoffrey Hendricks, who travelled eastwards for the first time in the 1980ies, this meant primarily the artists who had already travelled to Warsaw or Prague in the 1960s: Eric Andersen, Dick Higgins, Alison Knowles, and Ben Vautier. Very few galleries intensely promoted this artistic exchange: Galeria Akumulatory 2 in Poznań, the Warsaw galleries Foksal, Riwiera-Remont, and Piwna 20/26, and the Galeria Potocka in Cracow. In Hungary, it was Artpool that built up contacts with Fluxus artists, and created a documentation centre for Mail Art, Fluxus and other alternative art forms.
Toward the end of the 1980s, the reception and spread of Fluxus entered a new phase. Still, in socialist times, it was now possible (at least in Poland), to carry out such events as the ETC Festival, organised by Emmett Williams in 1987 and 1988, and the exhibition Otwarcia/Zamknięcia (On/Over) in the Warsaw National Museum.
Fluxus East represents a first stocktaking of the diverse Fluxus activities in the former Eastern Bloc; the exhibition shows parallel developments and artistic practices inspired by Fluxus, which are still adopted by some young artists today. Besides the “classic” Fluxus objects, the display will include photographs, films, correspondence, secret police files, interviews and recordings of music that document the presence of Fluxus in the former Eastern Bloc.
Although Fluxus as such was not widely known in Estonia in the 1960ies and 1970ies, and there were not personal contacts between Fluxus artists and artists in Estonia, striking parallel developments (in musical happenings, happenings, mail art and, visual poetry) existedcan be discovered. Selected examples of these will be presented in the exhibition in Tallinn.
As an interactive exhibition, Fluxus East aims to facilitate a profound encounter with ideas, works, and texts – some presented as facsimiles to permit intense study. In addition, Above that visitors will be able to play at Flux Ping Pong.
Artists:
Gábor Altorjay, Eric Andersen, Azorro, Miklós Erdély, Robert Filliou, György Galántai, Tibor Hajas, Geoffrey Hendricks, Dick Higgins, Tadeusz Kantor, Danius Kesminas, Milan Knížák, Alison Knowles, Július Koller, Jarosław Kozłowski, Vytautas Landsbergis, George Maciunas, Jonas Mekas, Larry Miller, Ben Patterson, Mieko Shiomi, Slave Pianos, Tamás St. Auby, Endre Tót, Gábor Tóth, Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas, Jiří Valoch, Ben Vautier, Branko Vucićević, Emmett Williams, ANK’64, Mart Lille / Arvo Pärt / Kuldar Sink / Toomas Velmet, SOUP’69 / Leonhard Lapin, Jüri Okas, Raul Meel, Peeter Volkonski, Raivo Kelomees, Ilmar Kruusamäe, Kiwa / Kaarel Kurismaa / Tõnis Vint, etc.
Curator: Petra Stegmann
Designer: Andrea Pichl
Produced by:
Künstlerhaus Bethanien
Funded by:
Kulturstiftung des Bundes
We thank:
The Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Goethe-Institut Tallinn, Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania in Estonia, Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Estonia, Danish Cultural Institute, Hungarian Institut
