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Fluxus Feminus FluxusFeminus KathyO'Dell There's no denyingit: Fluxus was an inclusiveoperation. The 1993 retro- spectiveexhibition "In the Spiritof Fluxus,"brilliantly organized by Elizabeth Armstrongand JoanRothfuss of the WalkerArt Center, confirmed that there were probablymore women and artistsof color associatedwith Fluxus than with any otherprevious grouping of artistsin Westernart history. This is no insignificantfact, given the originsof Fluxusin the earlyI960s in the wake of the seeminglymonolithic, white, male-dominatedphenomenon of Abstract Expressionism.Charlotte Moorman, Nam June Paik, Alison Knowles, Ben- jamin Patterson,Carolee Schneemann,Kate Millett, Shigeko Kubota, and Yako Ono are onlya few of the artistswho at one timeor anotherwere asso- ciatedwith Fluxus and were representedin the exhibition. Inclusivityis a relativeterm, however, and when it comesto figuringFluxus into the discourseon, say, genderissues, the titleof thisexhibition should be takenvery seriously. For it was, indeed, "in the spiritof Fluxus" thatits prac- tices be inclusive.But the historicalreality was somewhatdifferent-a history impossibleto documentin exhibitionformat due to the amorphousnature of its underpinnings.It is thishistory I wish to explorehere, in an effortto ex- pose those underpinningsand the affectthey had on work by women associ- ated withthe artisticactivities that came to be knownas "Fluxus."' As is well-documentedin numeroustexts, one of the mostrecent being the substantivecatalog that accompanied the exhibition (see Armstrongand Rothfuss 1993), it was Lithuanian architectand graphic designer George Maciunas who in 1962 bestowed the name "Fluxus" on an arrayof interna- tionalartists who shareda particularsensibility from which theywould work for many years, up to and including the present moment. For the same amount of time,this shared sensibility has defiedfirm definition-a predict- able and no doubt intentionaloutcome of Maciunas's neologizinga name for the groupfrom a rootword signifyingconstant change and transition. The Fluxus retrospective,which in Januaryof 1996 finisheda three-year tour throughthe United States and Europe, revealed certaincharacteristics common in much of the artists'work-wit, love of language games,a pur- posefulchildlikeness. But, veryaccurately, the exhibitionrevealed no unifying sense of style,form, or contentthat might ever allow Fluxus to be pigeon- holed. It was preciselythis lack of stableidentity-a conditionstunningly pre- scient of postmodern art practices-that opened Fluxus up to wide participationbut also, it would appear froma close look at Fluxus history, The Drama Review 41, 1 (T153), Spring 1997. Copyright ? 1997 New York Universityand theMassachusetts Institute of Technology. 43 This content downloaded from 62.122.78.43 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 16:30:11 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 44 KathyO'Dell closedoff that possibility. Between 1962 and his death in 1978,Maciunas car- riedout frequentacts of excommunicationwhich were paradoxically moti- vated,I believe,by unconsciousfactors-the "amorphous underpinnings" of Fluxushistory-that are part and parcel of acts of destabilization. Fluxusarchivist Harry Ruh6 has documented one ofMaciunas's more con- summatedismissals in hisflamboyantly entitled book Fluxus,the most radical andexperimental artmovement ofthe sixties. He quotesa letterhe receivedfrom GeorgeMaciunas in November1975: "[Charlotte] Moorman is on a Flux- blacklistwhich means that I boycottand do notcooperate with any exhibit, gallery,concert hall or individualthat ever included her in anyprogram or show,past and future" (in Ruh I1979:n.p.).It was notonly work by Fluxus women,however, that suffered from exclusionary practices. Ruh6 quotesan- othersection of the above letter in whichMaciunas categorically brushes aside JosephBeuys, Philip Corner, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Takehisa Kosugi, Jackson Mac Low,Robin Page, Terry Riley, Tomas Schmit, Wim T. Schippers,and Wolf Vostell,claiming they had "nothingto do withFluxus-ever" (1979:n.p.). Despitethe absoluteness of thislast proclamation, excommunications were notnecessarily final. Alison Knowles, for example, has reported that she and Dick Higginswere once excommunicatedbyMaciunas for presenting a con- certin Swedenthat was not in keepingwith a preferredlist of events he had sentthem-sent too late,that is, forthem to changetheir plans (Knowles 1993).The excommunicationwas fleeting,however, as it waswith many of theindividuals on theabove list, a factthat can be witnessedfrom the volume ofthese two artists' works considered by Maciunas to havequalified as Fluxus, severalof which were included in the"In theSpirit of Fluxus" exhibition. 1. & 2. Left:Kate Millett, Stool, 1967.Right: Kate Millettseated on herStool, 1967.(Photos by George Maciunas;courtesy of The Gilbertand Lila Silverman FluxusCollection, Detroit) Val:::: i~i'''''''''''''::-:j-W Al,: Iti~ !iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii! If :ii iii This content downloaded from 62.122.78.43 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 16:30:11 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions FluxusFeminus 45 Such storiesof excommunication-oftentemporary--of female and male Fluxusartists abound. Nonetheless, even when excommunications were not official,final, or even clearlystated, it was moreoften than not thefemale artistswho took suchresponses seriously.2 It is thelatter stories that are of interestto me,but notin termsof searchingout gossipydetails of who was officiallyexcommunicated from Fluxus when. Rather, I wishto stayfocused on thephenomenon of exclusion,its practice, and itspossible root causes. Given the factthat exclusionary practices have plagued artists throughout history-upto and including,especially, the last several years in theUnited States(Karen Finley, Tim Miller,John Fleck, Holly Hughes, the late David Wojnarowicz,and Ron Atheyare only a few of the more high-profile namesthat can be cited)-speculatingon causesis not onlywarranted, but imperative. It is mycontention that the root cause of these practices, at leastin part,has to do withthe relationship in thework between body and text.And I mean theseterms to be takenin themost down-to-earth way: body, as theactual physicalentity of the artist;text, as thewords the artist uses or produces. Moreto thepoint, it is,perhaps, the threat this relationship poses to dominant formsof power, when exploited-especially by women-thatprompted dis- missalof certain artists and/or certain of their works from the canon of Fluxus production.(In the case of Fluxus,that power was initiallyembodied by Maciunas,and thenby thosewho followedhis lead.) I say "especiallyby women"since it hasbeen thoughtwithin Western and someEastern tradi- tionsthat concerns related to thebody rest more in thedomain of women, andtextual concerns in thedomain of men. Put the two on a collisioncourse andthere is boundto be a volatileoutcome. "Volatility"is the keyword hereand one thatreadily comes to mind whenone thinksof theinfamous combination of KarenFinley's chocolate- and-tinselcovered body in WeKeep Our VictimsReady (I99o) and herear- splittingtext about the perception of women as nothingbut shit (symbolized by thechocolate) and decorativeobjects (symbolized by thetinsel). In order to getat thesticky issue of exclusionarypractices within Fluxus, it is neces- sarynow to stepback and asksome basic questions: What precisely was the relationshipbetween body and textin Fluxus?What did it look like?What didit suggest? I am goingto concentrateon onlya fewexamples of work, many of them performancepieces, by womenwho at one timeor anotherwere associated withFluxus. Body-text relationships are most obviously explored in thearena of performance,where the activities of boththe artist's body and hertext (whetherthe text be taped,read aloud, or printed)are oftenexperienced si- multaneously.However, as KristineStiles has pointed out in heressay in the catalogfor "In theSpirit of Fluxus,"all Fluxusproduction is "performative" in nature(1993:65). Indeed, whether it be an objectlike Kate Millett's 1967 Stool(plates I & 2), a simpleevent score like GeorgeBrecht's 1962 3 Piano Pieceswhich simply reads "standing/sitting/walking," or an entire evening of liveevents-a "concert," as Fluxusartists would call such an evening-theac- tivationof the body is implicit,if not totally explicit. Manyworks by Kate Millett and Carolee Schneemann serve as examplesof, respectively,implicitly and explicitlyperformative pieces. Both these artists wereat one time"officially" associated with Fluxus. An examinationof the relationshipbetween body and textin a selectionof piecesthey produced bothduring and after their official Fluxus tenure, along with a brieflook at a moresubtle form of prohibitionexperienced by consistentlyofficial Fluxus artistsYiko Ono and ShigekoKubota, will elucidate some of the motivating factorsin exclusionarypractices within Fluxus. This content downloaded from 62.122.78.43 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 16:30:11 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 46 KathyO'Dell In 1975 Schneemannpresented a performanceentitled Interior Scroll for "WomenHere & Now," a programof events held in a churchin EastHamp- ton, Long Island. InteriorScroll brought together elements operative in Schneemann'swork at leastsince her 1962 contribution to an eveningof per- formancesorganized by Dick Higginsand Philip Corner at theLiving Theatre in New York.There, in GlassEnvironment forSound and Motion, she "collaged" thestage with broken mirrors and safety glass, then encouraged performers to movethrough the environment in an effortto
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