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Fluxus Games and Contemporary Folklore: on the Non-Individual Character of Fluxus Art

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Fluxus Games and Contemporary Folklore: on the Non-Individual Character of Fluxus Art Bengt af Klintberg Fluxus Games and Contemporary Folklore: on the Non-Individual Character of Fluxus Art (Paper read at the symposium In the Spirit of Fluxus at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, February 12-13, 1993) j(?1/i I Offprint from Konsthistorisk Tidskrift Vol. LXll:2, 1993 Fluxus Games and Contemporary Folklore: on the Non-Individual Character of Fluxus Art BENGT AF KLINTBERG The similarities and differences between the most distinctive and important achievement. work of individual Fluxus artists have been They are characterized by such a striking simi­ much debated. The views expressed are diver­ larity that it is legitimate to talk about an art gent, to say the least. The artists themselves form with a conscious non-individual character. stress their indi vi dualism. Eric Andersen, for It is, as a matter of fact, difficult for a person example, has claimed that the only uniting factor who sees photo documentation of these early is that the Fluxus artists happened to appear pieces or reads or hears descriptions of them te together in public at a certain time. At a press decide which one of the artists is the originator. conferencc held in Copenhagen in connection Ken Friedman has recently collected a great with the arrangement "ExceUent 1992" several deal of them in The Fluxus Performance Work­ of the artists present protested against being book (Friedman 1990b ). Something that strikes calJcd a group. the reader is that this volume from 1990 is ac­ There are, nevertheless, Fluxus artists as well tually the first attempt at collecting scores of as art critics who see many uniting factors in the performance pieces by all artists who have been works which have been presented as Fluxus art. associated with Fluxus, scores which belong - Dick Higgins has distinguished nine criteria of with some few exceptions - to the sixties. What Fluxus art (Higgins 1991, 33ff), and his list has was published before was scores by single au­ been expanded into twelve criteria by Ken thors, such as George Brecht's Water Yam Friedman (Friedman 1990a, 329ff). The time (1963), Dick Higgins's Jefferson's Birthday does not permit me to discuss their lists in detail. (1964), Yoko Ono's Grapefruit (1964), and H ere I confine myself to mention those qualities pamphlets in the Something Else Press series that I have found most characteristic of Fluxus Great Bear Pamphlets (1966-69). Many impor­ art: it is intermedia, it is experimental and re­ tant scores are missing from The Fluxus Per­ search-oriented (thereby often using chance as formance Workbook, but it still overwhelms the an artistic method), and it favours simplicity and reader with its vitality and wit. playfulness. The reason why I have chosen to take up In this presentation I choose to disregard in­ similarities between the Fluxus performance dividual features and focus on similarities. pieces and folklore is that I have been active as a Therefore I will not talk about art works shown folklorist exactly as long as I have been involved at exhibitions during recent decades, where the in Fluxus. In the Fall of 1962 I lived a double life artists' personal modes of expression have be­ in Stockholm. In daytime I worked as an assist­ come more and more obvious. Instead, I want to ant at a folklore archive, researching old folk concentrate on the performance pieces of the beliefs and legends. In the evening I devoted early, collective years, which I regard as Fluxus' myself to Happenings and other artistic experi- Konsthistorisk Tidskrifi LX/l Hiifte 2, 1993 116 Bengt af Klintberg from left: Staffan Oh.on and Bengt af Kl intberg performing the latter's Alternative to Another Raulesnake ac th Fluxus concert in Di.isseldorf, February 3, l 963. Photo: Manfred Leve. ments at a small theatre together with Staffan Fluxus concerts in Diisscldorf at the end of Jan Olzon, who later became a theatre director. uary the next year. The journey took a longe At the end of November I came to Copenha­ time than expected and we arrived at the Kunst gen to see Danish fo lklorist colleagues. One of akademie in Diisseldorf just in time for the sec them gave me a free ticket to the Nikolai church, ond concert. It was an explosion of creativ where several fluxus concerts had already taken energy that I will never forger. When Dick Hig place. She warned me: it is something very gins and Alison Knowles told me that the strange, some kind of Dada music, many people planned to visit Stockholm one month later, w have become upset and left the concerts. I went decided to give three evenings with Fluxus com there and experienced an evening very different positions in Stockholm. The concerts took plac from those Happenings I had seen and per­ at the Alley Theatre on March 1-3, and all per formed. The Happenings were often loosely formers except Dick and Alison were Swede: structured, expressionistic pieces based on mate­ among others Staffan Olzon, myself and Ca rial effects. This was another kind of work Fredrik Reuterswaerd. George Maciunas sent rooted in music, more sophisticated, with a clear telegram to Dick, forbidding him to use th structure and playful humour. I became fasci­ name Fluxus when not all artists were presen nated and afterwards made contact with the art­ but the poster was already printed. Carl Fredri ists, which had as a consequence that Staffan Reuterswaerd wanted to participate under O lzon and I were invited to participate at the pseudonym, Charles Lavendel ( = Lavender Fluxus Games and Contemporary Folklore 117 ALLETEA TER N 0 NARVAVAGE N 7 happenings danger music xus Dick Higgins - Ali~on Knowles framfor kompositioner av Higgin .. Knowles. George Brecht ;nake at the AJ Han en, Nam June Paik. La Montey Yo ung m.fl. nd of Jan­ Svenska bidra ~ av bl.a. Lars Gu nnar Bodin. Ben~t Emil John­ i< a longer :he Kunst­ son ·Benrrt af Kliotberir, Charles LavendeL, Staffan Olzon ' t" 0 )T the sec­ >f creative Dick H ig- that they Forestiii Ini 11gar: h later, we Fr<>dag l mar:". kl. 20. uxus com­ took place Lorda!!.' 2 mar:-; kl. 20. '· nd all pcr­ Sondag :~ m a r s kl. M. re Swedes, f and Carl mas sent a to use the re present, Hiljcurr i tcatnn- "k a·~ a I\ ~ rim· arl Fredrik Entn· frau -1: - mar fort• vnrj~· fiircstiilloinll e under a Lavender). Poster from the Fluxus concerts in Stockholm, March t- 3, 1963. 118 Bengt af Klintberg Bengt af Klintbcrg: Orange Event No. 3 or How to Transform a Ball into a Straight Line. 1963, revised 1991. a Northern outpost of Fluxus, participating His contribution was that he poured out a bottle when Fluxus artists came to Stockholm to give of lavender perfume in the auditorium during concerts. Between these visits I devoted most of the first evening and then disappeared. my time to research into Swedish folklore. Later the same month I went to Oslo and by This background has made me aware of the chance got Swedish composer Sten Hanson as similarity between the Fluxus performance piec­ my travel companion. We organized a concert es of the first collective years and folklore. I am with Fluxus compositions for students at the by no means the first to notice that Fluxus art­ University of Oslo. The reaction was vehement; ists have a predilection for games, jokes, gags, I had to leave the concert hall through a back and rituals - all wellknown folklore genres. exit and returned to Stockholm by train the Dick Higgins has observed the close affinity same night. The following years I functioned as Fluxus Games and Contemporary Folklore 119 __. Yoko Ono at the exhibition Ubi Flux11s ibi motus in Venice 1990. Photo: Benge af Klintberg. between Fluxus scores and the rituals of so­ stitutional value. - It strives for the monostruc­ called primitive people, presented by ] erome tural and nontheatrical qualities of simple nat­ Rothenberg in his comprehensive anthology ural event, a game or a gag. It is the fusion of Technicians of the Sacred. When taken out of Spike Jones, Vaudeville, gag, children's games their usually sacred context these texts are, ac­ and Duchamp" (1965, quoted from Hendricks cording to Dick Higgins, "so close to Fluxus 1981 , 9). To me it is striking how close this pieces as to the nearly indistinguishable from definition comes to a definition of a contempo­ them" (Higgins 1991, 36). When Dick published rary fo lklore genre. The only thing missing is :d 1991. my collection of eventS, The Cursive Scandina­ the most typical quality of folklore: the ano­ vian Salve, in his Great Bear Pamphlet series, he nymity of the originator. It would have been micipating advised me to include some texts from my an­ interesting to know how Maciunas would have >I m to give thology of Swedish magic formulae. They are looked on the possibility that the Fluxus pieces :ed most of found under the title "Three Magic Events". become eventually detached from their origina­ lklore. It is worthwhile to take a folkloristic look at tors and live on as an orally transmitted contem­ ,.· are of the George Maciunas's by now classical definition porary genre! nance piec­ of what he labels "Fluxus Art-Amusement", At this symposium there are participants .klore. I am where he says that "anything can be art and much more expert on Fluxus chronology than I Fluxus art­ anyone can do it. Therefore, art-amusement am. Therefore I will not try to elucidate in detail iokes, gags, must be simple, amusing, unpretentious, con­ the birth of what I refer to as "Fluxus games" in ore genres.
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