We were deeply saddened to learn of the death of Milan Knížák, one of the most singular and independent figures associated with Fluxus.
Knížák’s connection to Fluxus began through the Czech critic Jindřich Chalupecký in 1965. George Maciunas soon appointed him “Director Fluxus East,” though Knížák’s relationship to Fluxus remained a critical one. Although he valued the Fluxus community and shared many of its concerns, he remained sceptical of what he saw as the artificiality of staged Fluxus events. When, for instance, Maciunas transformed one of Knížák’s simple actions into the event Snowstorm No. 1, Knížák protested that Maciunas’s version was “TOO ARTIFICIAL,” insisting that his own works were “VERY NATURAL.” This preference for actions rooted more directly in everyday life was already central to Aktual, the Prague-based group he helped found in 1964, which used actions, publications and ordinary situations to bring art and life into closer contact.
At the same time, Knížák played a substantial role in Fluxus. His involvement with Fluxus became especially visible in October 1966, when he organised a Fluxus concert in Prague as part of a wider series of events involving the likes of Ben Vautier, Dick Higgins and Alison Knowles. After finally obtaining a visa in 1968, Knížák travelled to the United States. During the visit, he took part in Fluxus activities in New York and presented several of his own actions, including Lying Ceremony at Douglass College in New Brunswick and Difficult Ceremony in New York. Maciunas also planned a Fluxus edition of Knížák’s collected works, though it was never published. He later travelled to California, where he met Ken Friedman, his counterpart as “Director Fluxus West,” after several years of correspondence.
Knížák remained, then, both inside and at a distance from Fluxus. Fluxus offered him friendships, exchange and an international platform, and he was an important organiser and mediator of its activities in Czechoslovakia. Fluxus, however, never fully defined his practice.
All biographical and historical information in this post is drawn from Petra Stegmann, ed., Fluxus East: Fluxus Networks in Central Eastern Europe (Berlin: Künstlerhaus Bethanien, 2007) and Tomáš Pospiszyl, “Milan Knížák and Ken Friedman: Keeping Together Manifestations in a Divided World,” post: notes on art in a global context, Museum of Modern Art, September 1, 2015, post.moma.org.
Featured Image: Commit Atentat Upon Everyone Who Is Preparing for War (Assassinate Anyone Preparing a War). Gelatin silver print from Milan Knížák’s Performance Files. File 35.The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Activating Fluxus 