Hendricks, Jon

What's Fluxus? What's Not! Why

Born of necessity in 1961, fathered by George Maciunas and mothered by the rejection of high art and commercial values, the anti-art Fluxus movement is here recorded with encyclopedic thoroughness. With historical essays by Fluxus artists including George Brecht, Robert Filliou, Dick Higgins, Allan Kaprow, Per Kirkeby. Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik, and Maciunas, and critical passages by Arthur Danto, Joan Rothfuss, and others, this book questions what it asks, in true Fluxus fashion. Recently there has been a tendency to characterize just about anything a little bit off-beat as 'Fluxus, writes Jon Hendricks. Vast international exhibitions have carried the title, but bear little resemblance to the 'real thing.' Like soymilk--it isn't. Even though soymilk is tasty, and nutritious, and looks white and frothy, it doesn't come from a cow. So, too, a lot of works carrying the logo 'Fluxus' aren't.... The question is not good versus bad. It's rather to chip away at the confusion and try to rediscover the very real importance and essentialness of Fluxus, and go from there.