Architecture and Efficiency: George Maciunas and the Economy Of

Architecture and efficiency George Maciunas and the economy of art CUAUHTEMOCMEDINA 1. The great frauds of architecture were less resistant to fire and even less beautiful. As for the Guggenheim Museum, LloydWright ought to have In the first prospectus of the contents of Fluxus devised a more intelligent enclosure to ensure that the magazine, of February 1962, George Maciunas paintings of the museum's collections were properly announced that he intended to publish an essay titled illuminated. Instead, propelled by his obsession with "The Grand Fakers of Architecture: M. v. d. Rohe, arranging the museum around a spiral ramp, he had Saarinen, Buschaft, F. L.Wright."1 This was, in fact, one perimeter windows installed all around the building, of the very few original projects for Fluxus magazine which made light fall exactly at the eye level of the that were finally included in the edition of the Fluxus 1 spectators, interfering with their appreciation of the art "yearbook" in 1964.2 In retrospect, this document is one works. In each of these cases, Maciunas denounced a of the best vantage points from which to understand the "preconceived" stylistic goal that hampered the economic rationale behind George Maciunas's anti-art. fulfillment of the building's aims, increasing the costs of In "The Grand Frauds of Architecture," George its construction and day-to-day operation. Maciunas Maciunas intended to critically demolish some of the quoted Mies van der Rohe with utmost irony: masterworks of American postwar architecture: Mies Van he will not make inevitable. der Rohe's Lake Shore Drive Apartments in Chicago "Alone," says, "logic beauty But with a (1949-1951); Eero Saarinen's MIT Auditorium logic, building shines." These innovations are Mies. (1952-1955); Gordon Bushaft's Lever House (1952); accepted matter-of-factly by "In our he "we don't have a a of course, Frank work/' says, grand idea, and, Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim . dream, and then try to glue it together. We just solve Museum (1957). Behaving like the district attorney before the tribunal of reason, Maciunas accused the problems."3 Masters of the modern canon of having cheated their But the "Great Frauds" took architecture as the own a a clients and, worse, betrayed their principles. To starting point for discussion of more general kind, an an give example, in the Lake Shore Apartments, Mies exposition of Maciunas's axiology. Trying to leave his sure were as a had been asked to make his buildings fire mark social theoretician, he composed a series of proof. According to Maciunas, the cheapest and most diagrams that summarized the relation between his beautiful solution would have been to employ fire-proof theory of anti-art and a certain economy of values. concrete for the structure. Instead, Mies had chosen Dictionary at hand, Maciunas dictated: Value is a some "'efficient' looking exposed steel columns," which "universal objective?'something to be desired.'" According to Maciunas there were at least four "universal values" that all forms of desire: a encompassed This essay is section of my Ph.D. dissertation for the University of Essex: "Fluxus non-art and anti-art. A of Maciunas," Study George in art value of experience, beauty 2003, which Iwrote under the guidance of Dawn Ades. Iwould like to thank the staffof the different librariesand archives inwhich I in industry value of productivity worked research and the of a during my acknowledge support grant in finance value of money from the D.G.A.P.A. of the National University of Mexico (UNAM). in science value of 1. Jon Hendricks, ed., Fluxus Codex. Introduction by Robert knowledge Pincus-Witten. New York: The Gilbert and Lila Silverman Fluxus This enumeration was, to be sure, like a Collection in association with Harry N. Abrams, Inc. Publishers, 1988, something schematization of modern social and the pp. 104-107. purposes, 2. George Maciunas, "The Grand Frauds of Architecture: Mies recognizable "modern" element of these values relies on van der Frank 1 Rohe, Saarinen, Buschaft, Lloyd Wright." Fluxus their apparent lack of hierarchical or structural bond. (1964):4. Maciunas held the piece in such esteem that he republished it in 1966: Underground Magazine 1:7 (Wednesday, December 28, In 3. 3. 1966):9. this essay Iquote from the original edition. Ibid., p. This content downloaded from 160.39.240.126 on Sun, 29 Sep 2013 16:28:18 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 274 RES45 SPRING2004 More importantly, perhaps, Maciunas conceived these ECONOMY without loss of value. human drives as governed by an unlimited ambition. economy of materials. According to Maciunas, the needs fulfilled by those four economy time, money, energy, ability, to attain more is "values" were to satiate in themselves. For and greater values possible with impossible EFFICIENCY humans, Maciunas argued, "the higher the value and the efficiency eliminates waste of energy, materials, more of it, the better." time, money, etc. and increases their effectiveness.5 Itwould be useful to examine this scheme as a us to rendition of a certain form of economic mentality. As This document might offer the key what George Maciunas to as Gary Cross argues, all through the first half of the used describe by the mid 1960s the was an an twentieth century most social arguments concerning "Fluxus way of life."6 It attempt at labor and leisure are framed under a "modern moral administration of desire that hoped to achieve the ideal economy of needs"; i.e., the continuation of the of an "economy without loss of value." The outcome of classical stoic distinction between natural needs "and such reasoning was, in fact, anti-art. Maciunas reasoned those unnatural wants which seemed to undermine that while three of the first basic human purposes he were community and rational use of free time." Most leftist, had outlined developmental?knowledge, money, to conservative, or sociological discourses tended to assess and productivity?in that they helped work increase the relations between work, leisure, and time on the production, "beauty" was an obstacle to progress. assumption that real human needs were limited. On that Departing from his critiques of contemporary basis, social reformers and activists believed that the architecture, Maciunas compared the economic art In increase in productivity in industry opened the rationality of and architecture. art, he argued, that art materials are possibility of obtaining reductions of working time, given normally of very low in art whereas technocrats and employers constantly worried importance the calculation of the work's cost, 90 costs are about the seeming incapacity of the market to absorb about percent of the of production derived from the "artist's attainment." On in the overproduction brought by technological advances. the contrary, the 90 of the final costs were Save for Marginalist economists, the notion of "limitless architecture percent spent in one was consumption" was a concept foreign to social materials and energy, and only tenth in and two discourses. Even Samuel Taylor's methods of "scientific employed designing planning. Logically, the an In management" were promoted with the idea that surplus disciplines had opposite economic behavior. itwas to more would eventually be large enough that workers and architecture perfectly logical spend time on A managers would find it "unnecessary to quarrel over and energy the architect's labor, i.e., design. higher how it should be divided."4 "logical deliberation," no matter how strenuous or an Maciunas's economic reasoning was a variation of costly, would eventually pay back by saving enormous amount resources. such an early modern rationale. He not only felt that the of material On the art desires of the modern subject were bottomless, but also contrary, could only be made cheaper by furthering that his unlimited demand would if unfettered lead to the artist's "dexterity." In the long term art was incapable a permanent scarcity: "Money, time, energy, ability is of progress: while the history of architecture showed more "continuous of in use of limited in quantity," he argued, while "desire for development efficiency since can and great value is not limited." As a consequence, a materials," its know-how be "objectively shared and secondary value had to be put in place to avoid the communicated producing historical economic crisis involved in such excess of want. This "2nd objective" was a form of economic reason: "attainment of greater value for less is desirable," 5. "The Grand Frauds of 1. to to Maciunas, Architecture," op. cit., p. leading therefore, Maciunas explained, the need 6. For instance, in a letter by Maciunas to Tomas Schmit written an "ECONOMY" that introduced a measure am develop in early 1964: "Fluxus way of life is 9 to 5 pm working socially humankind's voracious own mediating between impulses. constructive and useful work?earning your living, 5 pm to 10 on This was nothing other than the value of "EFFICIENCY." pm. spending time propagandizing your way of life among other pm idle artist & art collectors and fighting them, 12 to 8 a.m. sleeping (8 hours is enough)" (George Maciunas, Letter to Tomas Schmit, November 8, 1963. Silverman Collection, New York. Partly reproduced by Jon Hendricks in Fluxus etc/Addenda II. The Gilbert and Lila 4. Gary Cross, Time and Money. The Making of Consumer Silverman Collection. Pasadena: Baxter Art Gallery, California Institute Culture. London: Routledge, 1993, pp. 15-45. Taylor quoted in p. 19. of Technology, 1983, pp. 166-167). This content downloaded from 160.39.240.126 on Sun, 29 Sep 2013 16:28:18 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Medina: Architecture and efficiency 275 letterswere like hands. (. .) an and a a could only increase his output by envelope glove? continuity," painter .

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