Tamara posted this info at iuoma:
I've been reading this, thought you all might be
interested:
"Mr. Fluxus" a collective portrait of George Maciunas,
1931 - 1978
edited by Emmet Williams and Ann Noel
excerpt - George Maciunas letter to Tomas Schmit, Jan
1964
"Fluxus objectives are social (not aesthetic). They
are connected to the LEF group of 1929 in the Soviet
Union (ideologically) and concerned with the gradual
elimination of the fine arts (music, theater, poetry,
fiction, painting, sculpture etc. etc.) This is
motivated by a desire to stop the waste of material
and human resources (like yourself) and divert it to
socially constructive ends. Such as applied arts:
industrial design, journalism, architecture,
engineering, graphic-typographic arts, printing, etc.
They are all most closely related fields to fine arts
and offer the best alternative profession to fine
artists. All clear til now?
Thus Fluxus is definitely against art object as
non-functional commodity - to be sold and to make
livelihood for an artist. It could temporarily have
the pedagogical function of teaching people the
needlessness of art, including the needlessness of
Fluxus itself. It should not be therefore
permanent..... Fluxus therefore is ANTI-PROFESSIONAL
(against professional art or artists making a
livelihood from art, or artists spending their full
time, their life, on art).
Secondly, Fluxus is against art as medium or vehicle
promoting the artist's ego, since applied art should
express the objective problem to be solved, not the
artist's personality or his ego. Fluxus therefore
should tend towards collective spirit, anonymity and
ANTI-INDIVIDUALISM...." (end of quote)
However, I see that George did sell his and other's
Fluxus work, and credited the individual creators.
He set up a Fluxus store on Canal Street, where they
had multiples for sale, the idea being to make things
that could be sold cheaply. They played with the idea
of Fluxus as a business, sometimes dressing in
business suits and carrying fluxworks in attache
cases. They published books and magazines for sale.
Despite that fluxworks were for sale, at low prices,
hardly anybody bought anything, and George was always
going into debt for his Fluxus projects. He even went
broke converting lofts in Soho, though everybody else
who came after him made lots of money.
George paid artists for their work, sometimes with
money, and sometimes with odd exchanges. One woman
(sorry I forget who, it's somewhere in the book) said
he paid her for the fluxboxes she made with 400
dresses from a used clothing store.
Not everyone in Fluxus agreed with George's ideas. He
complained that most Fluxus members "still wanted to
make art" and also that many were apolitical. He was
constantly excommunicating members who did something
he disproved of.
He worked full time as a graphic designer and/or
architectural draftsman, but he put ALL the rest of
his time and energy into Fluxus.
I could make my own comments, but I'll hold them for
later.
