Fluxus Experience

by Hannah Higgins

In this groundbreaking work of incisive scholarship and analysis, Hannah Higgins explores the influential art movement Fluxus. Daring, disparate, contentious―Fluxus artists worked with minimal and prosaic materials now familiar in post-World War II art. Higgins describes the experience of Fluxus for viewers, even experiences resembling sensory assaults, as affirming transactions between self and world.

Fluxus began in the 1950s with artists from around the world who favored no single style or medium but displayed an inclination to experiment. Two formats are unique to a type of performance art called the Event, and the Fluxkit multiple, a collection of everyday objects or inexpensive printed cards collected in a box that viewers explore privately. Higgins examines these two setups to bring to life the Fluxus experience, how it works, and how and why it's important. She does so by moving out from the art itself in what she describes as a series of concentric to the artists who create Fluxus, to the creative movements related to Fluxus (and critics' and curators' perceptions and reception of them), to the lessons of Fluxus art for pedagogy in general.

Although it was commonly associated with political and cultural activism in the 1960s, Fluxus struggled against being pigeonholed in these too-prescriptive and narrow terms. Higgins, the daughter of the Fluxus artists Alison Knowles and Dick Higgins, makes the most of her personal connection to the movement by sharing her firsthand experience, bringing an astounding immediacy to her writing and a palpable commitment to shedding light on what Fluxus is and why it matters.

Genres: Art, Art History, Nonfiction

304 pages, Paperback

First published November 12, 2002

About the author

Higgins is the daughter of the Fluxus artists, Dick Higgins and Alison Knowles. She received her B.A. in 1988 from Oberlin College, her M.A. from the University of Chicago in 1990, and graduated with her Ph.D. in 1994 from the University of Chicago. Higgins is married to Joe Reinstein, Head of Surrogates for the Obama presidential campaign, and has two children: Zoë and Nathalie. Her twin sister, Jessica Higgins, is a New York and Massachusetts-based intermedia artist.

Reviews

[Tosh · Rating 3 out of 5]

In my head, when I first saw this book cover, I was hoping that "Fluxus Experience" would be more of a memoir by Hannah Higgins, the daughter of Dick Higgins and Alison Knowles, two important post-war artists. This is not the case. It's pretty much an academically driven study on Fluxus and their publications and some of their performances. Also a critique of the educational world that surrounds the subject matter of Fluxus.

So, yes I was disappointed that it wasn't a memoir because-because I'm writing a memoir dealing with me as a child and being raised by an artist and artistic family, I wanted to read something of that subject. And roughly the years match up with mine. But no law says a child of an art couple associated with Fluxus cannot write a serious book on Fluxus.

As an introduction to Fluxus, the book is perfectly fine. But it does read like an academic paper, and since it is published by a University Press, that makes perfect sense. The book is beautifully designed, with fascinating black and white images of both the works of art as well as the artists performing their works. The book reads like an introduction to a catalog to an exhibition. I would like to see that show.

[Cobertizo · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Paintings & Drawings (1961), la primera exposición individual de Yoko Ono en Nueva York y la última celebrada en AG Gallery, tuvo un efecto especial. Cuando Maciunas invitó a Ono, le indicó que la exposición solo podía suceder durante el día porque les habían cortado el suministro eléctrico. Esta contingencia amplió el campo de observación y convirtió cada lienzo en un soporte de las variaciones de luz y sombra proyectadas desde exterior. Pero no fue el único cambio que las obras experimentaron; cada una de las pinturas estaba acompañada de un texto que explicaba su función y podía ser completada por quienes visitaran la exposición. Los textos escritos por Toshi Ichiyanagi a pedido de Ono, quien en un principio se ocupó de narrar a los visitantes los procesos, inducían a una acción: “Pintura para ser pisada” o “Pintura para ser prendida fuego”. Jon Hendricks sintetiza así el procedimiento desarrollado por Maciunas a partir de este tipo de “partituras textuales”, practicadas inicialmente por artistas como John Cage o George Brecht: “Un artista le comunicaba una idea, él interpretaba su contenido, y a continuación producía una edición de la pieza en forma de objeto de arte barato, repetible y producible en masa, socavando de tal modo, según él, la preciosidad del arte"

Fluxus escritos. Actos textuales antes y después de Fluxus (2019)

[Ign33l · Rating 5 out of 5]

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[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written by a friend of mine from Oberlin (and Dick Higgins and Alison Knowles' daughter), truly the only rigorous theoretical study of Fluxus I have found. It's very helpful for my upcoming show "Mr. Fluxus" (an environmental installation/exhibition/interactive performance where the audience will explore all 13 rooms of the Neo-Futurarium) which opens in November!

[Erica · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so good I almost considered creating a new shelf for it called "giant u-haul of awesome."

[Sergiy Holmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant point of view on Fluxus.