Activating Fluxus
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Elke Allgaier: Once upon a time – when Hanns Sohm started his private archive
In this post, Elke Allgaier, chief curator of Archiv Sohm based at the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart, Germany, takes us through the archive’s beginnings and its transition from the ownership of Hanns Sohm, a passionate collector of the avant-garde, to its present-day institutional home.
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“Call It Something Else: Something Else Press, Inc. (1963-1974)” at Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid
On September 26, 2023, the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid celebrated the inauguration of an exhibition titled “Llámalo de otra manera / Call It Something Else: Something Else Press, Inc. (1963-1974),” curated by the New York-based duo of curators, Alice Centamore and Christian Xatrec. The exhibition focuses on the books, projects, and activities of Dick…
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Fluxus Study Day #2. Touring North Rhine-Westphalia: A Visual Essay
During our latest Fluxus Study Day, the Activating Fluxus team ventured across the North Rhine-Westphalia with stops at three locations: the Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach; Museum Ostwall, Dortmund; and, Kunstmuseum Bochum, Bochum. At our first destination, Museum Abteiberg, we were taken by Felicia Rappe and Melanie Seidler, respectively the curator of the museum and research fellow,
ABOUT OUR PROJECT, IN BRIEF
This research project, which has been funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation at Bern University of the Arts, investigates the objects, events, scores, and ephemera that emerged in the spirit of Fluxus in the 1960s–70s in Switzerland, Europe, the UK, and the USA. Inherently fluctuating by definition, Fluxus rejects any stable, material form. Considering the transitory aspects of Fluxus forms not destined for preservation, and looking through a multidisciplinary lens of conservation, art history, performance studies, heritage studies and museology, our project will advance novel strategies for activating Fluxus through the reconstruction, adaptation and artistic reinterpretation of Fluxus forms.
AIMS AND MEANS
The project has three principal aims : (I) Using examples of collections and individual artworks held in Switzerland and abroad, the project reviews, catalogues, evaluates and systematises the current strategies for exhibiting, conserving and documenting Fluxus. (II) By means of a theoretical investigation of the notions of authenticity, changeability and intentionality and the role they play in the continuing life of Fluxus intermedia, (III) the project advances new strategies for activating Fluxus works through (a) the reconstruction, (b) the adaptation and (c) the artistic reinterpretation of Fluxus forms.
IN DETAIL
Activating Fluxus centers on the lives and afterlives of Fluxus objects, events, and ephemera created in the 1960s–70s in Switzerland, Europe, the UK, and the US. Fluxus transformed creative practice for good, not least by questioning the dominant preconception of the artwork as something that endures unchanged. Inherently fluctuating by definition, the creative outputs of Fluxus reject any stable, material form. While many histories of the post-war avant-garde focus on the implications of nascent conceptualism and performativity for other artistic genres, the proposed project considers the fundamentally transitory aspects of Fluxus forms not destined for preservation. By seeking new ways to engage with the legacy of Fluxus through the lens of conservation, art history, performance studies, heritage studies and museology, this project examines the possibility of activating Fluxus, challenged as it is by its paradoxical coexistence of ephemerality and materiality, with implications for how we conceive of changeable artworks that emerged after the 1960s.
Activating Fluxus 