previews

  • George Maciunas, Gift Box for John Cage: Spell Your Name with These Objects, 1972, leather-covered, red velvet-lined box, acorn, egg, glass stopper, plastic boxes of seeds, etc., 2 x 9 1/3 x 4"

    George Maciunas, Gift Box for John Cage: Spell Your Name with These Objects, 1972, leather-covered, red velvet-lined box, acorn, egg, glass stopper, plastic boxes of seeds, etc., 2 x 9 1/3 x 4"

    Fluxus and the Essential Questions of Life

    University of Michigan | Museum of Art (UMMA)
    525 South State Street
    February 25–May 20, 2012

    Hood Museum of Art
    Dartmouth College, 6 East Wheelock Street
    April 16–August 7, 2011

    Grey Art Gallery
    100 Washington Square East New York University
    September 9–October 3, 2011

    Curated by Jacquelynn Baas

    How to present Fluxus in a museum context has always been a problem. The movement was animated by performances and ephemeral transactions, manifestos and publications. And Fluxus objects were meant to be picked up and handled, not simply looked at. Perhaps to dislodge the notoriously slippery movement from conventional scholarly and critical rubrics, “Fluxus and the Essential Questions of Life” focuses on the experiential and pedagogical. One hundred twenty objects, including Fluxus kits, scores, and games, will be organized around a series of questions such as “Change?” “Danger?” “Freedom?” and “What Am I?” The catalogue, presented like a Fluxus self-help book, includes essays by Baas, Ken Friedman, Hannah Higgins, and Jacob Proctor.

    — Liz Kotz