Festum Fluxorum Fluxus

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Poster for FESTUM FLUXORUM FLUXUS , State Art Academy Düsseldorf, 2./3. February 1963

The FESTUM FLUXORUM. FLUXUS. Music and anti-music. The Instrumental Theater was an international Fluxus festival that took place on Saturday, February 2nd and Sunday, February 3rd, 1963 in the auditorium of the State Art Academy in Düsseldorf . After concerts in Wiesbaden , Copenhagen and Paris, the festival was the fourth stop on an international Fluxus tour designed by George Maciunas .

poster

The 48.5 × 23.7 cm poster lists several artists, composers and writers who did not take part in the FESTUM FLUXORUM FLUXUS , and whose mention is rather a kind of reverence . These include George Brecht , Sylvano Bussotti , John Cage , Cornelius Cardew , Carlheinz Caspari , Robert Filliou , Brion Gysin , Alfred E. Hansen , Raoul Hausmann , Dieter Hülsmanns , Toshi Ichiyanagi , Takehisa Kosugi , V. Landsbergis , Gjörgi Ligeti , Jackson Mac Low , Gherasim Luca , Bruno Maderna , Yoriaki Matsudaira , Yoko Ono , K. Penderecki , Terry Riley , Griffith Rose , Frederic Rzewski , A. Salcius and Robert Watts . The basic structure of the poster with the posters designed by Maciunas for the Wiesbaden Fluxus Festival is Fluxus. International Festival of the Latest Music from September 1 to 23, 1962 and the Parisian Festum Fluxorum. Poesie, Musique et Antimusique evenementielle et concrete related from December 3rd to 8th, 1962, but with white writing on a black background. The details were designed by Beuys, at least that's how Paik said: “The poster design Beuys himself was very instructive.” And further: “The leader of Fluxus, George Maciunas' name is placed at the upper left corner and mine is under his followed by many other names. Beuys' name is placed at the 32nd in old German alphabet, which is not easily readable. ”Since the Fluxus Festival was scheduled as a“ Colloquium for the students of the Academy ”, it can be assumed that Beuys will rely on the educational content of such an event wanted to point out.

procedure

The FESTUM FLUXORUM FLUXUS was personally organized by Joseph Beuys , at the time professor at the State Art Academy in Düsseldorf, in consultation with George Maciunas and Nam June Paik . Paik, who was initially to be won over by Maciunas for a solo evening in Düsseldorf, brought Beuys “into play as a co-organizer for an extensive festival of all kinds of activities”, whereupon Maciunas turned to Beuys and Paik in his letters, in which he was accommodated asked for props such as a free-standing ladder, a slide projector or a water bucket. Participating artists were Dick Higgins , Bengt af Klintberg , Alison Knowles , Arthur Køpcke , George Maciunas, Staffan Olzon, Nam June Paik, Benjamin Patterson , Tomas Schmit , Daniel Spoerri , Frank Trowbridge, Wolf Vostell , Emmett Williams and Joseph Beuys At the event, he had "attached a cord to the upper frame of a school blackboard and put his hat, twigs and other things, apparently lumps of clay, on a horizontal strut below the blackboard." George Maciunas had developed plans of action for the Düsseldorf event, which, however, often happened in reality deviated from these. Since it was customary in the Fluxus Circle to comply with democratic agreements, in the sense that "the author of a work does not have to be its interpreter at the same time, the artists involved in Düsseldorf also acted in pieces by their artist friends."

First evening

Manifesto , Festum Fluxorum Fluxus, Düsseldorf, February 1963

Jean-Pierre Wilhelm , who ran Galerie 22 in Düsseldorf from 1957 to 1960 , gave the introductory speech - a lengthy address in which key terms such as Dada , Junk Art, Pop Art and Happening were used to show what the coming event should be differentiated from would, as well as the phrase "seemingly absurd acts". After Wilhelm sat in the first row, Beuys sat behind him in the audience or stood next to the stage, in order to dazzle the performers with the bright light of a flashlight for the rest of the evening, much to the annoyance of the performers.

Young Penis Symphony
Nam June Paik, 1963
Photograph by Manfred Leve
Link to the picture
(Please note copyrights )

The concert began on the first evening with Benjamin Patterson's Paper Piece , with small strips of paper being thrown over the audience while a large sheet of paper was rolled out over the audience. In addition, a “Manifesto” written by Maciunas and printed by Beuys was thrown into the audience. While the paper action was still going on, a large white piece of paper was stretched across the stage for Nam June Paik's Young Penis Symphony . According to the score, ten young men are supposed to stick their penis one by one through the holes in the paper wall, which Paik replaced for Düsseldorf with six index fingers, which pierced the paper from behind, creating ever larger holes.

At the same time as Emmet Williams Counting Song , who previously performed his Alphabet Symphony , where he handled 26 objects such as a cigarette, a balloon, mirror, champagne flute and a shoebox wrapped in gift paper, which he unwrapped while sitting, Daniel Spoerri performed his homage à l 'Allemagne , during which he reread Wilhelm's opening speech over the click of a white metronome . Now George Maciunas appeared and led the artists Frank Trowbridge, Addi Køpcke, Bengt af Klintberg, Tomas Schmit and Wolf Vostell, marching behind him, once around the stage and back out again. In the following piece, Two Inches by Robert Watts, Thomas Schmit and Emmet Williams cut a 5 cm wide ribbon stretched across the stage, followed by Jackson Mac Low's Letter for Iris Numbers for Silence , where cards were randomly distributed and in different positions according to instructions were held.

George Maciunas then performed his piece Hommage à Adriano Olivetti . Nam June Paik, with round motorcycle cap, Tomas Schmit, with military cap, Addi Køpcke, Wolf Vostell, Daniel Spoerri, Frank Trowbridge and Maciunas, a melon wore as a headdress, stood in a row, and Emmett Williams sat in a chair next to the standing Trowbridge. Everyone was holding strips of paper from the adding machine with a certain number on them between other numbers. When this number came up, the actor had to perform a small action: At 1, the index finger had to be pointed at someone; with 2 on the floor or to the ceiling; at 3 you had to sit down; at 6 an umbrella open and close; bow at 7; at 8 someone was allowed to stamp their foot and at 9 a salute was given.

On this evening Joseph Beuys performed his first Fluxus action FLUXUS Sibirische Symphonie 1st movement . Not only were the action objects still used from previous actions, such as wings, school blackboard or a ladder, on the stage, but the action relics that had been left behind were also on the floor. On the school blackboard were the old rows of numbers that Emmett Williams lined up there during the Alphabet Symphony . Since Joseph Beuys wanted to use a dead stag for his campaign, but this could not be obtained, Beuys used a hare.

Beuys put on his hat, which he had attached to the table strut, attached the hare to the prepared cord with a hook and let it hang down on the table. Now he wiped out the rows of numbers on the board and removed the remains of the past actions, sat down at the grand piano and played his own composition, followed fairly quickly by suggested elements from the pieces Messe des Pauvres and Sonneries de la Rose + Croix by Erik Satie . Then he wrote something on the blackboard, placed five lumps of clay on the side of the grand piano facing the audience, each with a small branch. The elements on the grand piano, connected with a cord, were connected with the cord, which in turn was connected with a curved needle to the heart of the rabbit that Beuys had previously opened. After Beuys had taken out the heart with a knife, he “put the little heart on the school blackboard so that it was connected to the piano by the connecting line over the branches and the clay.” The whole action lasted about 10 minutes.

Now it was Addi Køpcke's turn with Cigarette Piece and wrote “20 cigarettes / break them all / roll 20 new ones / throw out tobacco” on the board and then hung an ornate gold frame, which he said with the words “Fill in with your Imagination ”over the board. After a few anti-musical performances, Wolf Vostell followed with Kleenex 5 , who turned the stage into a studio. Vostell pushed a larger plate onto the stage, tilted it, opened an issue of the magazine Life and attached it to the plate. With a rag dipped in a mixture of turpentine and carbon tetrachloride , he blurred the images and did the same with Playboy .

Second evening

2 musicians
Joseph Beuys, 1963
Here on the record cover Joseph Beuys, Henning Christiansen: Scottish Symphony. Requiem of Art , 1972
Link to the picture
(Please note copyrights )

On the second evening two ladders, the blackboard and the grand piano stood on the stage. First, large wooden blocks were pushed across the stage. Then Dick Higgins, Frank Trowbridge, Nam June Paik, Joseph Beuys, Tomas Schmit, Addi Køpcke, Wolf Vostell, George Maciunas, Alison Knowles and Daniel Spoerri came on stage in full light, leaned over and looked while Higgins did his Graphis 118 recited, attentive to the floor.

Now Joseph Beuys performed his composition for 2 musicians by suddenly stepping onto the stage during a break in action, placing a mechanical toy on the floor, opening it and letting it play until the clockwork ran out after about 20 seconds. After Beuys' action, Af Klintberg's Alternative to another Rattlesnake was performed, with two Swedish assistants standing in the background in front of a door and holding 20 large sheets of paper ready. Bengt af Klintberg and Staffan Olzon, each standing on or next to a ladder, now held up to four arcs each, on which freely invented syllables, letters, punctuation marks, such as three parallel lines on top of each other followed by five dots, could be read. After the ladders were pushed away again, Nam June Paik shook hands with Hansjörg Mayer in Alison Knowle's play Yes, yes , "as if he wanted to welcome those who had finally arrived."

Tomas Schmit now piled objects on the lid of the grand piano, such as a water jug, an abacus , a flower vase with a few flowers, a roll of posters, toilet paper, a small train and photos. He lifted the lid, and with corresponding simultaneous noises, like a polyphonic chord, everything in Piano Piece No. 1 fell to the floor. In the meantime, after George Maciunas sat down in front of a grand piano with the lid open in George Brecht's Incidental Music Version 5 without playing, Alison Knowles performed solo serenade for Alison , written in 1962 by Paik for Knowles. Without musical accompaniment, dressed in a white blouse and black half-length skirt, her long hair pinned up, she lifted the skirt to the side and took off several underpants, the color and order of which Paik had determined beforehand, and then threw them in Audience.

In the following piece from Nam June Paik's Fluxus Champian Contest , some participants gathered close together in a circle around a zinc tub, pissed into it, sang their respective national anthems for as long as possible, with Paik standing next to them and checking everything with the stopwatch. The winner was Frank Trowbridge as he was out of the bathroom all day. Dick Higgins also performed the piece 566 for Henry Flynt by La Monte Young, where he played the same note 566 times with both forearms and Daniel Spoerri calmly turned the coffee grinder on a chair.

The Fluxus Festival ended with two program items. First was George Brecht's Word Event. Fluxus version I. The audiance is instructed to leave the theater and EXIT , which was last on the school blackboard, carried out, with Brecht's Three Lamp Events./On.off/lamp/off at the same time, with the one-time switching on and off of a lamp . on / was activated.

Further exhibitions

In the corridor in front of the auditorium of the art academy - that was the action room - Joseph Beuys had placed a number of table showcases with plastic objects that encouraged collectors and exhibition organizers to new exhibitions, such as the "stable exhibition " Fluxus in Kranenburg that took place in the same year . So - at least on the first day - the collector Rudolf Zwirner , who came with his wife, and the Cologne collector Wolfgang Hahn visited the FESTUM FLUXORUM FLUXUS . Furthermore, Alfred Schmela , Günther Uecker and his wife, Norbert Kricke and Heinz Mack were among the audience . Nam June Paik got Exposition of music just a month later . Electronic television in the Parnass Gallery in Wuppertal his first solo exhibition in Germany, which took place from March 11th to 20th, 1963.

reception

The former head of the modern department of the Museum Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf, Stephan von Wiese, comments on this exhibition with regard to Paik's later professorship: “Paik's later teaching at this very institution fifteen years later had its early roots here. In 1978 Beuys' license to teach at the Academy was finally revoked by a court order. At that time, Paik not only brought video art and technology, which had caused a sensation at documenta 6 in 1977, to the academy. Intentionally or unintentionally, Fluxus was also recruited instead of Beuys ”.

From July 17 to 27, 2003, 40 years after the event, the Düsseldorf Art Academy organized a ten-day project with films, photos and documents as a reminiscence. In doing so, she raised awareness of the event as an international artistic movement between music, literature, theater and the visual arts, which paved the way for performance, video art and concept art .

literature

  • Uwe M. Schneede : Joseph Beuys. The actions. Annotated catalog raisonné with photographic documentation . Verlag Gerd Hatje, Ostfildern-Ruit, ISBN 3-7757-0450-7 .
  • Susanne Rennert: Chronology (1958–1968). In: sediment. Announcements on the history of the art trade, Nam June Paik's early years in the Rhineland , Central Archive of the International Art Trade eV ZADIK, Issue 9, 2005, Verlag für Moderne Kunst Nürnberg, Cologne 2005.
  • Renate Buschmann, Stephan von Wiese (Ed.): Photos write art history. DuMont, Cologne 2007 (exhibition catalog for the exhibition Photos Write Art History , December 8, 2007 to March 2, 2008, Museum Kunst Palast , Düsseldorf), ISBN 978-3-8321-9058-3 .
  • Petra Stegmann. The lunatics are on the loose… European Fluxus Festivals 1962-1977 , Down with art! Potsdam 2012, ISBN 978-3-9815579-0-9 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Illustrations of the posters in: 1962–1982. Illustrated chronology . In: René Block (Vorw.): 1962 WiesbadenFLUXUS 1982. A short story of Fluxus in three parts . Harlekin Art, Berlin artist program of the DAAD, Wiesbaden / Kassel / Berlin 1983, pp. 10, 14
  2. ↑ Nam June Paik, cit. after Uwe M. Schneede: Joseph Beuys. The actions. Annotated catalog raisonné with photographic documentation . Verlag Gerd Hatje, Ostfildern-Ruit, p. 20.
  3. ↑ Uwe M. Schneede: Joseph Beuys. The actions. Annotated catalog raisonné with photographic documentation , Ostfildern-Ruit, p. 20.
  4. ↑ Antje von Graevenitz: Language seizes matter - the FESTUM FLUXORUM FLUXUS in Düsseldorf 1963. In: Renate Buschmann, Stephan von Wiese (ed.): Photos write art history . DuMont, Cologne 2007 (exhibition catalog for the exhibition Photos Write Art History , December 8, 2007 to March 2, 2008, Museum Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf), p. 67 f.
  5. ↑ Jürgen Becker: Wolf Vostell. Happenings - Fluxus - Pop Art - Nouveau Réalisme . Reinbek 1965, p. 195 ff.
  6. ↑ a b c d Uwe M. Schneede: Joseph Beuys. The actions. Annotated catalog raisonné with photographic documentation , p. 22.
  7. ^ Susanne Rennert: Chronology (1958–1968). In: sediment. Communications on the history of the art trade, Nam June Paik's early years in the Rhineland , Central Archive of the International Art Trade eV ZADIK, Issue 9, 2005, Verlag für Moderne Kunst Nürnberg, Cologne 2005, p. 34 f.
  8. ↑ Antje von Graevenitz: Language seizes matter - the FESTUM FLUXORUM FLUXUS in Düsseldorf 1963. In: Renate Buschmann, Stephan von Wiese (ed.): Photos write art history . DuMont, Cologne 2007, p. 69.
  9. ↑ a b Susanne Rennert: Chronology (1958–1968). In: sediment. Announcements on the history of the art trade, Nam June Paik's early years in the Rhineland , Central Archive of the International Art Trade eV ZADIK, Issue 9, Cologne 2005, p. 19.
  10. ↑ Antje von Graevenitz, in Renate Buschmann, Stephan von Wiese (ed.): Photos write art history , Cologne 2007, p. 71.
  11. ↑ Antje von Graevenitz, in Renate Buschmann, Stephan von Wiese (ed.), P. 73.
  12. ↑ Antje von Graevenitz, in Renate Buschmann, Stephan von Wiese (ed.), P. 73 f.
  13. ↑ Susanne Anna (ed.): Joseph Beuys, Düsseldorf , Hatje Cantz, Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf, Ostfildern 2008 p. 48.
  14. ↑ a b Uwe M. Schneede: Joseph Beuys. The Actions , p. 23.
  15. ↑ Joseph Beuys, in: Conversation with Richard Hamilton , February 26, 1972, cited above. after Uwe M. Schneede: Joseph Beuys. The Actions , p. 24.
  16. ↑ Antje von Graevenitz, in Renate Buschmann, Stephan von Wiese (ed.), P. 75 f.
  17. ^ A b Antje von Graevenitz, in Renate Buschmann, Stephan von Wiese (ed.), P. 77.
  18. ^ Petra Stegmann. The lunatics are on the loose… European Fluxus Festivals 1962-1977 , Down with art! Potsdam 2012.
  19. ↑ Uwe M. Schneede: Joseph Beuys. The Actions , p. 34.
  20. ↑ Antje von Graevenitz, in Renate Buschmann, Stephan von Wiese (ed.), P. 77 f.
  21. ↑ Hanjörg Mayer is an editor of artist books.
  22. ↑ Antje von Graevenitz, in Renate Buschmann, Stephan von Wiese (ed.), P. 79.
  23. ^ Antje von Graevenitz, in Renate Buschmann, Stephan von Wiese (Ed.), P. 80.
  24. ↑ a b Antje von Graevenitz, in Renate Buschmann, Stephan von Wiese (ed.), P. 82.
  25. ^ Susanne Rennert: Chronology (1958–1968). In: sediment. Announcements on the history of the art trade, Nam June Paik's early years in the Rhineland , Central Archive of the International Art Trade eV ZADIK, Issue 9, 2005, p. 35.
  26. ^ A b Antje von Graevenitz, in Renate Buschmann, Stephan von Wiese (ed.), P. 82 f.
  27. ↑ Hans van der Grinten: "Stallausstellung" Fluxus 1963 in Kranenburg. In: Bernd Klüser, Katharina Hegewisch (Hrsg.): The art of the exhibition. A documentation of thirty exemplary art exhibitions of this century . Insel Verlag, ISBN 3-458-16203-8 , p. 174.
  28. ↑ Susanne Rennert: »Everything is in flux. Rien n'est figé «. The gallery 22 and Düsseldorf's departure to new art. In: Renate Buschmann, Stephan von Wiese (Eds.), P. 24.
  29. ↑ Quoted from the web link Stephan von Wiese
  30. ↑ Fluxus in Düsseldorf 1962/63 in: Kunstaspekte, accessed on July 19, 2011

Coordinates: 51 ° 13 ′ 49.9 ″  N , 6 ° 46 ′ 25.1 ″  E