Hallo:

danke für diesen Einwand, und die sehr interessante Beschreibung von Fluxus as Gruppe/Bewegung
hmm, das ist natuerlich auch spannend, wie stellt man eine Bewegung aus oder
reflektiert auf sie, und muss man dann nicht wiederum die Protagonisten dazunehmen
und hinstellen, bzw die (anonymen? oder markierten/unterzeichneten?) "Objekte" oder Collagen & Partituren?

Im CAM, Houston, lief gerade eine "Solo" Show über Benjamin Patterson
: http://www.camh.org/exhib_MAIN.html   (Benjamin Patterson: Born in the State of FLUX/us),
und in einer Ecke -- das hatte ich ja vielleicht schon mal hier angesprochen – lief eine Collage
von FluxFilms, praktisch anonym, die Titel flickerten nur mal ganz kurz vorbei, aber Macunias
wollte wohl sicherlich die Bewegung oder - kann man das so sagen - das "Kollektiv" vorstellen
und es ging dabei nicht um die Künstler, sondern die Llangbildperformances?


mit Gruss

Johannes Birringer




Dorothee schreibt:


Dear Johannes and all,
I have researched on Fluxus for a long time, (my Ph.D. research) and did
long-time video interviews with many Fluxus artists, we had also a
festival and a kind of exhibition at the Cabaret Voltaire (Adrian Notz
and I curated), so I would also argue that all the Fluxus work was
conceived as partiturs, as scripts for music and the revolutionary
approach was, that literary everything could be brought into the scores
as material. Also many of the Fluxus boxes (multiples) originate from
activities or were meant to open up possibilities for activities. I
would not use the term performance because it was used in the art
context sometinmes later, not at the beginning of Fluxus in 1962. Paik
was in his way a central figure because he made many connections between
the European and the American artists, between visual artists and
musicians. But, as later in Ono's case, some artists also became singled
out by the market in good old genius fashion - which is really boring in
a way - because the group, (not defined, no manifest that was agreed
upon by all, from all different countries with many histories of
emigration, ..) made it possible that things happened which were not
around before especially not through a single artist. This all makes it
very difficult to "present" or " represent" any artwork from that period
and it is also a strange and sad reduction to discuss these productions
through the work of a single artist. This is only good in terms of the
commodity value of specific work, for nothing else. (Sorry my
possibilities to express myself are reduced because I am not a native
speaker). In some ways one should from a critical perspective think
about the very different money backgrounds of the artists, which at a
certain moment in history had extreme left wing convictions (notably
Paik) but were decidedly part of the very commodified art system and
also started with very different financial background. This was very
visible when Yoko Ono did get the prize at the Venice Biennual  where
she actually brought some other Fluxus artists with her in her private
jet but did not mention at all the context of the whole group which made
her and others work possible. (her first exhibition in NY was at
Maciunas gallery.) --- best, Dorothee


Am 03.02.11 14:58, schrieb Johannes Birringer:
> hello Simon and all:
>
> thanks for the response to my comments on the dissolving dresses
> and cut pieces.
>
> It looks like a passionate defense of the subject of performance, what you write Simon,
> and yet may I beg to differ slightly?  (not that I differ from you about the subjects of
> performance and the performers).....
>
> But what if one were to see the "Cut Piece"
> as a concert piece  (Ono was a musician, had worked with
> John Cage and Ornette Coleman, and she was invited to stage
> the "concert" at Carnegie Recital Hall)?
>
> And there she performed her score (the instruction, which as you rightly point out
> ambiguously invites the audience –- and the Cagean overtones can be
> heard -- to partake of/perform the instrument,  scissors, her cloth on her body,
> and all the things that might be heard/seen during the performance, the cutting -
> i think this constitutes a sound of music performance (via Goebel) or a
> performance piece if you will, that can be restaged, reperformed
> and reexhibited, and I'd argue that the museum has already
> archived Ono, successfully.
>
> No doubt the same has happened to Paik and his media art works
> and other Fluxus artists and their more/less ephemeral pieces
> (long in the waiting, but it eventually happened,
> with Carolee Schneemann, and I'd venture to guess she welcomes it,
> as did Tehching Hsieh, who had been almost entirely forgotten&
> marginalized. Tehching Hsieh meticulously documented his long durational
> time pieces with photographs, serials and serials of them, and as with Paik,
> their exhibition raises numerous issues, as they are now exhibitable
> as photographic time art objects related to the "original").
>
> with regards
>
> Johannes Birringer
> dap-lab. london
>
>
>
> Simon schreibt:
>
> "Cut Piece" is a performance that derives its value from the interactions of
> the artist (who is the subject and object) and the audience who are invited
> to cut her clothes. Ono's work is not as extreme or as interesting as
> Abramowic's, who also worked with knives - but where the audience cut her -
> but nevertheless a good illustration of an early work dealing with
> inter-subjectivity, the performative and the ephemeral. As a work it is
> uncollectable....
>