FLUXUS FAMILIAS

Jennie Klein

Books Reviewed: Hannah Higgins, Fluxus Experience, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002; Alison Knowles, Footnotes: Collage Journal 30 Years, New York: Granary Books, 2000; Alison Knowles, Spoken Text, Barrytown, NY: Left Hand Books, 1993; Dick Higgins/Paul Woodbine, Life Flowers, Kingston, NY: McPherson and Co., Publishers, 1996/2002; Dick Higgins/Paul Woodbine, Octette, Kingston, NY: McPherson and Co., Publishers, 1994.

n 2002, while in upstate New York, the colors while holding aloft such things I was lucky enough to be present at as a red pepper, a green skein of cord, a I an evening of Fluxus performance brown metal fragment and a white Ti- and screening of Fluxfilms organized by betan scarf. Adding a new dimension of Gary Wilke at the Uptown Café in texture, experience and meaning to the Kingston. One of the highlights of the words, all of the objects (no longer balls evening for me (besides Yoko Ono’s of yarn as they were when seven year Number 4, a five minute film of the old Jessica Higgins initially “performed” buttocks of various performers walking the piece) replace the spoken words. As away from the camera) was Alison evidenced by this performance, Fluxus, Knowles’s Mantra for Jessie—Some help at least in the Higgins/Knowles house- in Sleeping (1971). The genesis of the hold was and continues to be a family piece was a moment when Knowles affair. I was charmed that night by the overheard her daughter Jessica, who at intergenerational performance, which the time was seven, learning to knit reminded me of my own experience with variegated yarn while naming the learning how to knit. Even at a tender colors out loud. Listening from the next age, Jessica Higgins, today a member of room, Knowles jotted down the names the second generation of Fluxus artists, of the colors. Performed with objects was participating in her parent’s per- the approximate colors of Jessica formances. Higgins’s variegated yarn, Mantra for Jessie is both conceptual and physical— Jessica’s twin sister Hannah Higgins, a performer (Jessica Higgins the evening although an art historian and critic of November 7) calls out the names of rather than an artist, has also immersed

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520281041969110 by guest on 02 October 2021 herself in all things Fluxus, going so far argued and researched text. Higgins’s as to write a dissertation on Fluxus art. knowledge of contemporary art theory, Higgins’s Fluxus Experience grew out of particularly the theoretical discourse on that dissertation. The book is an at- the relationship between phenomenol- tempt to build upon the body of sec- ogy and epistemology is impressive (she ondary critical writings about the move- teaches a course on art and “experience” ment that begin in 1993 with the at University of Illinois–Chicago, where important exhibition and accompany- she is an associate professor). I particu- ing catalogue In The Spirit of Fluxus at larly enjoyed her reading of the mean- the Walker Art Center. Taking as her ing of the performing bodies and per- point of departure Kristine Stiles’s con- formance-oriented objects in Fluxus as tention that Fluxus performance and presenting depersonalized, primary in- objects can be read as a “mode” of formation that was not about activating action in a world that has the potential the subjectivity of the artist but about to enact radical epistemological shifts, bringing the viewer into visceral and Higgins revisits Fluxus objects, perform- visual contact with his or her own ances, and books as well as the critical experience of the piece. This reading is writing then in order to argue for the very different from the more traditional continuing relevance of Fluxus practice readings of performance art, which is to the art world today. The central generally seen to hinge on the body of thesis of Fluxus Experience, as implied the performer rather than the experi- by the title, is that the art made by ence of the viewer. artists associated with the Fluxus move- ment—fluxkits, events (performances), Crucial to Higgins’s argument is her books and charts, was meant to “form first-hand knowledge of Fluxus events, multiple pathways toward ‘ontological objects, and books. Growing up, she knowledge.’” Fluxus art functioned by was surrounded by the objects that her activating all of the senses—taste, smell, parents and their friends made. Her touch, hearing, and vision. Even this intimate familiarity with all things latter category, which has been the Fluxus permits her to craft a strong lynchpin upon which Western aesthetic argument based on the ontological truth theory has rested, is called into question of the objects. Most of us who are of by Fluxus objects and films. Rather Higgins’s generation have had to con- than reinforcing the concept of the tent ourselves with simply looking at disembodied eye, they reembody that Fluxus objects. Higgins, on the other eye by forcing the viewer to acknowl- hand, had the opportunity to touch edge its corporeal function. these objects, and that activity is central to her theorization of their meaning. Prior to reading Fluxus Experience, I Looking at these small, ephemeral ob- have to admit to having had some jects in museum vitrines (which is my reservations about the rigor of this par- own experience of Fluxus objects), it is ticular text given the extremely close fairly easy to think of them as simply relationship that Higgins has enjoyed another example of anti-object concep- with many of the major protagonists of tual work from the anti-establishment the Fluxus movement. I was pleasantly sixties. Higgins, on the other hand, sees surprised, therefore, to encounter a well- things to touch, wear, taste, and try out

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520281041969110 by guest on 02 October 2021 in various ways. One get the sense that Higgins invokes her father’s term she knows about what she speaks when “intermedia” and analyzes his Intermedia she writes that the taste of blood and Chart (1995) to demonstrate that Fluxus metal is terrible when wearing George was also a movement based on primary Maciunas’s Flux Smile Machine (1970– life experience of all manner of things, 72), a sprung metal “smiling” device. one that is “radically empiricist, based on the principle of direct sensory per- That said, Fluxus Experience doesn’t have ception of everyday life.” any surprises for those familiar with the work of Alison Knowles and her hus- As an art historian who teaches contem- band and fellow artist Dick Higgins. porary art history, I found most helpful Higgins’s reading of the meaning of Higgins’ recontextualization of Fluxus Fluxus events is understandably indebted as a movement with affinities to hap- to that of her parents, both of whom penings, conceptual art, and pop art. read and commented on Fluxus Experi- Most of the Fluxus artists in the Higgins/ ence several times. An unapologetic apo- Knowles group cited John Cage’s ex- logia for the Knowles/Higgins pere be- perimental music composition class as lief in Fluxus art as “intermedia” (a term central to their own understanding of coined by Dick Higgins to indicate a art making—just as his teaching and dynamic exchange between art and life), ideas are viewed as central to the move- a large portion of Fluxus Experience is ments cited above. Higgins’s desire to devoted to contradicting the claim made resituate Fluxus so that it becomes part by George Maciunas (one of the of the discursive structure of post-war founders of Fluxus) and others that avant-garde art is both laudable and Fluxus was anti-establishment anti-art. necessary. Long considered a separate The interpretation of Fluxus as an anti- branch on the performance tree or the art, neo-dada movement that challenged last gasp of a post-war avant-garde, bourgeois complacency has stuck, in Fluxus has been relegated to the back spite of the many pieces (some by room of exhibitions on performance Knowles and Dick Higgins) that con- and conceptual art and the back pages tradict that reading. To be sure, as (or footnotes) of surveys of modern art. Higgins herself admits, some of the What is more, as Higgins demonstrates, events and objects associated with the institutionalization of Fluxus, at Fluxus, such as the event/protests orga- least in America, has denied its experi- nized by Maciunas, were anti-art and ential dimension. This impression is anti-institution. Higgins argues that reinforced by the emphasis on the cen- many other objects and events associ- trality of Maciunas to Fluxus. Because ated with Fluxus were not intended to Maciunas is no longer alive, Fluxus has be anti-art at all. Even Maciunas, as been constructed as a historical move- Higgins points out, was never able to ment in several catalogues and recent permanently expel artists or prevent exhibitions, such as the catalogues and relationships between Fluxus artists and exhibitions associated with the Gilbert artists that he had deemed to be no and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection in longer worthy of inclusion in the Fluxus Detroit. Having before her an actual canon. In order to prove her point, example of a second generation Fluxus

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520281041969110 by guest on 02 October 2021 artist working today in the person of interdisciplinary exploration, self- her own twin sister, Higgins is at great directed study, collective work, and the pains to argue that Fluxus is still very nonhierarchical exchange of ideas” while much an active avant-garde movement. avoiding the stultifying influence of the She thus draws a contrast between the academy. This approach to art making, reception of Fluxus in America and its far from being anti-art, is one grounded reception in Germany and Italy, where in a non-Western epistemological sys- state-sponsored performances and events tem that favors primary experience that have replaced static museum exhibitions. is non-visual.

In saving her discussion of the reception The same year that Fluxus Experience of Fluxus in Germany and Italy until was published (2002), Higgins also pub- the end of the discussion on the recep- lished an article entitled “Kidflux” in tion of Fluxus, Higgins implies that the the winter issue of Performance Research. model in these countries should be Clearly, the issue of pedagogy for all followed in our country. In the final ages is one about which Higgins feels and most compelling chapter of Fluxus very strongly. Herself the mother of two Experience, Higgins proposes a radical children who are presently in elemen- pedagogical process based on Fluxus tary school, Higgins obviously has a practices that would keep the spirit of stake in articulating a type of teaching Fluxus very much alive for many years that begins with elementary school and to come. Thanks to her parents, Higgins, continues through a university educa- along with her sister and other Fluxkids tion. I can attest to the correctness of such as Bracken Hendricks (son of Higgins’ assertions. I feel that the best Geoff), experienced (literally) a type of and most productive pedagogical envi- learning that required activation of all ronments have been those that called of the senses. Citing the example of upon the students to engage in primary Robert Filliou’s “Poipoidrome” (a never experience—looking, touching, inter- realized architectural structure consist- acting and open discussion without fear ing of four rooms, each of which per- of a grade being attached. In this envi- mitted physical, emotional, and psychic ronment, creativity and innovation is experiences of knowledge to be linked the norm rather than the exception. to various modes of pedagogical presen- Having taught in a number of different tation), Higgins posits that the most environments, including most recently effective means of teaching is to permit the public college and university system the pupil to have primary experience— in budget-strapped California, I am also visceral experience that is more than aware of how difficult it is to foster this visual. Arguing that art and art making type of pedagogical approach in a class- is central to our spiritual and corporeal room where 45 students is a “small” well-being, Higgins suggests that the class. With these numbers, it is a chal- value of Fluxus experience lies not in its lenge to even arrange for primary visual position as an historical avant-garde experience for most students, as local movement, but in its potential as an museums are unlikely to tolerate large avant-garde pedagogical strategy that groups of students clogging the galleries fosters “experiential learning, but also and blocking the exits while trying to

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520281041969110 by guest on 02 October 2021 take notes with dangerous looking ink experience with Gentle Surprises for the pens. Ear when I began reading Knowles’s Footnotes: collage journal 30 years. This However, there is in fact one way that is a collection of pages from a series of the students can have a primary experi- red Windsor and Newton 5 x 7 inch ence with learning about art: they can notebooks. These original sheets, in- enjoy, read, and use artist’s books that dexical markers of Knowles’ thoughts are offered at a reasonable cost, so that and impressions while moving through each student may own a copy. Reason- time zones, countries, forest paths, and ably priced artists’ books have been a city streets, have been enhanced through hallmark of Fluxus production since its the addition of drawings added around inception. George Maciunas was either the tape that originally was intended to directly or indirectly involved with a hold the sheet onto a piece of white number of Fluxus publications. More paper in preparation for scanning. A importantly, Dick Higgins founded further addition is the “found” words Something Else Press in 1964 in order to and phrases that enhance or extend— publish books that larger publishing depending on the perception of the houses were simply not interested in reader—the meaning of the collage on touching. In spite of the obvious finan- the page opposite. cial difficulties of running an indepen- dent press, Dick Higgins continued pub- To hold Footnotes in your hands, to leaf lishing his and others’ books until his through the pages, turning to this im- untimely death in 1998. Books, and age or that as the fancy strikes you, is to book making, were central to the Fluxus experience these images through the project, particularly the New York City agency of Knowles’s physical body. The branch that had contact with Dick collages, reproduced in color, still look Higgins and Alison Knowles. Books are like notebook paper with bits of flotsam objects that are often cherished and and jetsam pasted or stuck on to them. enjoyed again and again. The centrality Although the title of the book is taken of book-making to the Dick Higgins/ from the “footnotes” on the page oppo- Knowles practice of Fluxus, an aspect of site the collages—ostensibly titles, al- the practice that often gets lost in sur- though some collages do not have one— vey texts and exhibitions, reinforces it also points to the nature of the Hannah Higgins’s argument that Fluxus contents within. These are notes taken art was about primary experience rather on foot, as it were, small wonders jotted than a denial of the bourgeois value of down rather than forgotten, as is often art. the case in our quotidian world. Rein- forcing this impression is the image on In 1998, I viewed Alison Knowles’ Gentle the cover of Knowles’s own feet—clad Surprises for the Ear in the L.A. MOCA in Japanese toe socks—posed with one Out of Actions exhibition. Since I didn’t heel lifted as though ready to continue use any of the objects to make music, this journey. In fact, the only image my experience of the piece was partial reproduced in color is a small object and not the experience that Knowles embedded in tar that Knowles found on had intended viewers like myself to Greene Street in New York in the seven- have. I was reminded of my abortive ties. An enigmatic round part (for me,

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520281041969110 by guest on 02 October 2021 at least) with two screws curving grace- tion of German radio Knowles, who fully around the edges of the frame and studies beans (several bean works are accompanied by an admonition not to documented in Fluxus Experience), ex- smoke on the opposite page, Object in perienced and documented this cer- Tar was made from a slide that Knowles emony, which she then turned into a took of the unrecoverable mechanical play. object, a relic of Greene Street’s indus- trial days in the early part of the twenti- One of the things that I liked about eth century. Object in Tar appears and Spoken Text was that the reader could reappears throughout the rest of the enact his or her own performances from book in the form of several drawings— the clear and simple directions that blind or otherwise—executed by were often depicted in elegant diagrams Knowles. In Footnotes this small unre- and charts. For most art departments, markable object is transformed into a hiring an artist who teaches perform- kind of amanuensis that guides us ance is an expensive luxury. In the past through the circuitous text (the preface while teaching at a very small liberal appears at the beginning and at the end, arts college, I was called upon to be the although the organization of the text is performance art “authority” as well as not itself symmetrical). professor of contemporary art history, a role that made me uncomfortable be- Several of the collages in Footnotes make cause my training has not been in per- reference to events and objects seen and formance art. With a book such as experienced in Germany. Knowles has Spoken Text, I could facilitate a perform- spent a great deal of time in that coun- ance lecture “taught” by Alison try. Over a period of ten years, she Knowles—a wonderful experience for composed a series of radio plays for students who would not otherwise be West German Radio. The texts of these exposed to such material. Both Spoken plays, later developed into live perform- Text and Footnotes are available for about ances, comprise her book Spoken Text. $20—hardly a strain on student bud- The genesis for the small collages fea- gets that are accustomed to paying more turing beans turns out to be the per- than $100 for one textbook. The two formance Bean Sequences, a meditation texts by Dick Higgins, Life Flowers and on the meaning of beans that was fun to Octette, both with original (and beauti- read, and, I suspect, even more fun to ful) prints by Paul Woodbine, are slightly perform. Bean narratives—some hand- more expensive in comparison to the written, some typed—are interspersed two books by Knowles. They are aston- with the names of beans. As the read- ishingly inexpensive, however, consider- ings move in a circle, the beans are ing the quality of the product ($225.00 sounded. When the reading is over, the for Octette, signed by Higgins and Wood- objects on the table and the beans are bine, and $400.00 for Life Flowers with sounded, also in a circle. Beans appear letterpress prints signed and numbered once more in the performance Setsubun by Woodbine). Re-issued recently by II, which refers to a bean throwing McPherson and Company, Publishers, ceremony that originated in China and Octette and Life Flowers are both beauti- ends with written directions to a Shinto ful books, bound in brown silk (Octette) shrine in Japan. Traveling at the invita- and white linen (Life Flowers) and pro-

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520281041969110 by guest on 02 October 2021 tectively encased in jackets (leather and had studied under Cage, rather then the white linen, respectively). Although not Zen content of the original poem when published by Something Else Press, both he wrote the text for Life Flowers. Never- texts reflect the experimental nature theless, the emphasis on chance and the that has characterized Fluxus art pro- play of language and words in Life duction. The genesis of Octette was a Flowers, in addition to its connection to “peculiar little play” by Higgins that a seminal Buddhist text, has captured Woodbine had seen performed in 1987. the spirit—if not the letter—of the Zen Inspired, Woodbine, who was working Buddhist doctrine of spontaneous and on Life Flowers at the time, created a unsuspected enlightenment. Octette and series of prints that included images of Life Flowers, like the two texts by chairs, stars, flying fish, dots, and a Knowles, provide for a variety of experi- dancing figure. These collage prints ences—the joy of holding such beauti- turned out to be totally inappropriate ful objects, the visceral pleasure that for the play that Woodbine had seen. comes from looking at and touching Undeterred, Higgins took eight of the the colorful prints, and the physical prints home. Several months later, a process of mouthing or even speaking thick brown envelope containing eight the words of the poems. There is also poems corresponding to the eight prints the enjoyment that comes from con- arrived in Woodbine’s mail. Octette, a necting the images by Woodbine with serendipitous collaboration, had been the text by Higgins. born. Kathy O’Dell published an article in In their immediacy and spontaneity, in The Drama Review (Spring 1997) en- addition to their reliance on chance, the titled “Fluxus Feminus.” O’Dell con- poems written by Higgins for Octette cluded that performance work that vio- allude to Zen Buddhism. Zen Bud- lated the boundaries of proper bodily dhism is premised upon experience and conduct, work such as that of Carolee a sense of connectedness to the world. Schneemann, Shigeko Kubota, Yoko Enlightenment, when it comes, is Ono, and Kate Millet, was excluded achieved through the back door, so to from Fluxus because it wreaked “semiotic speak. John Cage, with whom Dick havoc”—i.e., construed an excessive Higgins studied at the New School, in body/text relationship. Excluded from 1958, employed the tenets of Zen in his this roster was Alison Knowles, who own work. Life Flowers, best read out apparently did not sufficiently engage loud (my interpretation) also has a Zen the body in her own work although connection. Based upon the Shobogenzo O’Dell did interview her. I am struck Genjokoan written in 1233 by Dogen by how short sighted this approach to for his disciple Yo-koshu, Life Flowers, feminist art practice appears. The famil- illustrated with sixteen “blackout prints,” ial/maternal connection explored in the is a long permutational poem based on work of Dick Higgins, Alison Knowles, this important thirteenth century Zen Jessica Higgins, and theorized by Han- text. An Episcopalian all his life, Higgins nah Higgins, while less “flashy” than art was probably more interested in the that engages the abject and feminized study of chance operations, which he body, is nevertheless worthy of further

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1520281041969110 by guest on 02 October 2021 exploration. The emphasis on familial art histories, when examined can under- pedagogy, a path followed and practiced cut the construction of male primo- by Knowles, Dick Higgins (who used geniture that exists even today (with Something Else Press as a pedagogical Maciunas still credited with the virgin platform), Jessica Higgins, and Hannah birth of Fluxus). It is to the credit of the Higgins, is a profoundly feminist strat- Knowles/Higgins family that these bonds egy, one that has implications that ex- are not only acknowledged, but also tend way beyond the narrow borders of made the centerpiece of much of their the art world. These bonds, so seldom work. discussed or acknowledged in traditional

JENNIE KLEIN is a contributing editor to PAJ. She is the editor of The Essential Writings of Linda M. Montano.

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