Fluxus, by Chance

Fluxus emerged in the late 1950s and early 1960s from the coming together of individuals who were not initially artists, but became so through creative exchange. George Brecht was a chemist before becoming an artist. Robert Filliou was an economist before becoming an artist. La Monte Young was a musician before becoming an artist. Emmett Williams was an anthropologist before becoming an artist. George Maciunas was a graphic designer (and colourblind) before becoming an artist — and so on.

Their individual experiences offered rich experimental potential to be shared, as Fluxus was a collective, cosmopolitan, and participatory endeavour. It sought, particularly through the event and through play, to dissolve the boundary and hierarchy between artist and audience.

Maciunas came up with the name for this nascent group. “Fluxus” comes from the word flux, and Fluxus activism spread through festivals, with the publication of diverse periodicals and editions — essentially advocating an art without fixed works and without virtuosity, challenging the persistent overvaluation of the handcrafted art object, whose supposed excellence was thought to lie in its uniqueness, even after Duchamp.

In this sense, Fluxus anticipated conceptual art. The exhibition extends to Dada, its precursor, and some of its natural heirs. It also pays tribute to Huang Yong Ping, a self-proclaimed Dadaist, and to Geng Jianyi, an influential professor at the China Academy of Fine Arts, who, telepathically, at least, could hardly have remained unaware of Fluxus.