Activating Fluxus
news | EVENTS | writings
-
Ben (1935– 2024)
On June 5, 2024, the world lost Ben Vautier, known simply as Ben. Rather than composing a traditional obituary, I chose to delve deeper into the photograph of Ben on the homepage of our website, unpacking what it represents and the circumstances under which it was captured.
-
Research festival and exhibition: Conserving Performance, Performing Conservation, September 2024
“Performance, Conservation, Materiality, Knowledge”, our sister project at the Bern University of the Arts, has released a schedule preview for their concluding research festival and exhibition “Conserving Performance: Performing Conservation.” The events will take place across Switzerland from September 14 to September 29, 2024. Mark your calendars and get ready to join the PCMK team…
-
Sally Kawamura: Opening the network in Mieko Shiomi’s Open Event, 2023
Sally Kawamura, a member of our extended Activating Fluxus team, reflects on Mieko Shiomi’s Open Event in both its historic iteration and more recent focus during the exhibition Out of Bounds: Japanese Women Artists in Fluxus, held at the Japan Society gallery in New York from October 2023 – January 2024 and curated by Midori Yoshimoto…
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 