Episode 5: ‘Orange Event No. 3’ (1963) by Bengt af Klintberg

Composed by Bengt af Klintberg in 1963, Orange Event No 3 (or Apelsinhändelse nr 3 in Swedish) is one of the scores from the series Twenty-Five Orange Events. The series was published several times, the first time in Swedish in 1966, together with other writings by af Klintberg.

“One year later, in October 1966, I was once again in Copenhagen.
My book »Stockholmsspelet» (»The Stockholm Game») had been published with mixed contents: the orange events, documentation of the ice exhibition, »Food Piece for Dick Higgins», poems, excerpts from my diary.” (af Klintberg 2007)

The English translation of 25 Orange Events appears in The Cursive Scandinavian Salve, originally published in 1967 as a Great Bear Pamphlet by Something Else Press (af Klintberg 1967), and later republished by ubuweb in 2004 under the title The Cursive Scandinavian Slave (af Klintberg 2004).

In 1992 af Klintberg produced a visual representation of the Orange Event No. 3 – an editioned black and white photograph of orange slices arranged in a line. It was produced for various exhibitions of Fluxus works that happened around this time. The version of the photograph collected by Moderna Museet is an editioned print on paper in which the photograph is accompanied by a typewritten title of the score and an explanation of the scored action. As the print does not offer a possibility for interacting with the photographed orange slices by choosing one of the “pigs”, af Klintberg added another instruction to the core of the original score in which he asks the recipient to perform the action of observing “the similarity between the units and the uniqueness of each of them”.

Around the same time, Edition Hundertmark published the Orange Event No 3 as a multiple– editioned wooden box containing the wrapping paper of an orange, a photograph of the orange slices arranged in a row (the same as in the editioned print) and a sheet of paper with the score and additional instructions. The box is meant to be interacted with, as the instructions, reiterating the original score, ask the user to choose one of the pigs by marking it with arrows or to paint it in a colour of one’s choice.

Although originally conceived for intimate performing rather than for the stage, Orange Event no 3 was included several times in public events. In 1994 it was a part of “Fluxus Media Opera. Original Fluxus & Fluxus in the Electronic Media Era” concert at Xebec Hall in Kobe, Japan, organized by Mieko Shiomi.

In 2006 Orange Event No. 3 was performed by af Klintberg during Stockholm New Music Festival held at Rönnells Antikvariat.

Ten years later, in 2016, Stockholm based Great Learning Orchestra performed all Twenty-Five Orange Events in Konstakademien simultaneously with another piece by af Klintberg titled Orangery Music (1963) and the recording of this unusual concert is available on SoundCloud.

The latest manifestation of all Twenty-Five Orange Events, this time created specifically for the digital realm, is Orange Events: an Art Project by LA-based Southland Ensemble. In line with their tradition of exploring Fluxus art annually, they ensembled together with friends from all around the world, interpreted af Klintberg scores, and shared the video documentation on a playful, bespoke website. Although judging from the size of the fruit, the prop in the video documenting Orange Event No. 3 is a mandarin not an orange, it gets peeled and segmented according to the original score in a lovely scenery. At the end of the video an anonymous hand arranges the segments in a row and picks one from the middle. 

Bengt af Klintberg is a Swedish ethnologist, folklorist, author, poet and artist. Af Klintberg organised and was involved in the Fluxus concerts in Stockholm and Oslo in 1963. In addition to Fluxus, af Klintberg began working with happenings, experimental music, theatre and poetry in the early 1960s. This resulted in poetry books such as Stigar (Paths, 1959), Ormkungens krona (The Crown of the Snake-King, 1961), as well as Stockholmsspelet (The Stockholm Game, 1966). Today he is best known for his books on Swedish folklore, such as the bestseller Rattan i pizzan (The Rat in the Pizza, 1986), Den stulna njuren. Sagner och rykten i var tid (The stolen kidney. Legends and rumours in our time, 1994) and Glitterspray & 99 andra klintbergare (Glitter Spray & 99 other klintbergare, 2005). He has also produced folklore programs for Swedish radio and was awarded the title of professor in 2006.[1]

Magdalena Holdar is Associate Professor of Art History and Curatorial Studies at Stockholm University. For several years she was a course leader of the International MA programme in Curating Art, as well as the BA and MA programmes in Art History. She has published extensively on Fluxus, and conceptual and performance-based art in the 1960s and 70s. Her most recent publication is the monograph Fluxus as a Network of Friends, Strangers, and Things (Brill, 2022). She co-edited the anthology on intermedia: The Power of the In-Between (Stockholm University Press, 2018) and is currently working on a book about the Swedish Fluxus artist Bengt af Klintberg.

BIBLIOGRAPHY and references

• af Klintberg, Bengt. 1966. Stockholmsspelet : Dikter Dagbok Events 1961-66. Stockh: P.A. Norstedt 
• af Klintberg, Bengt. 2004. The Cursive Scandinavian Slave. ubuclassics. https://www.ubu.com/historical/gb/klintberg_cursive.pdf.
• af Klintberg, Bengt. 1967. The Cursive Scandinavian Salve. New York: Something Else Press.
• af Klintberg, Bengt. 2007. Svensk Fluxus / Swedish Fluxus. Stockholm: Rönnells antikvariat.
• Friedman, Ken, Owen Smith, and Lauren Sawchyn. 2002. Fluxus Performance Workbook. e-publication. http://www.performance-research.net/pages/e- publications.html.
• Friedman, Ken. 2006. “The Case for Bengt Af Klinberg.” Performance Research 11 (2): 137–44. https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rprs20.
• Stegmann, Petra, ed. 2012. “The Lunatics Are on the Loose …” : European Fluxus Festivals 1962-1977. Potsdam: Down with Art!

[1] Source: Stegmann, Petra, ed. 2012. “The Lunatics Are on the Loose …” : European Fluxus Festivals 1962-1977. Potsdam: Down with Art!, p. 559