FLUXUS EAST — FLUXUS NETWORKS IN CENTRAL EASTERN EUROPE
18 April – 1 June 2008
Opening: Thursday, 17 April 2008, 6.00 pm.
Opening speech by Petra Stegmann, Curator
Guided tour and press reception: 17 April 2008, 5 pm.
Fluxus is well-known as an (anti-)artistic, international network with centres in the USA, Western Europe and Japan. But what about this “intermedia” art – art encompassing music, actions, poetry, objects and events – beyond the “Iron Curtain”? What echo did Fluxus find in the states of the former Eastern Bloc, and what parallel developments existed there? As a “programme of action”, Fluxus – according to its self-styled “chairman”, the exiled Lithuanian George Maciunas in a letter to Nikita Chruscev – was predestined to bring about unity between the “concretist” artists of the world and the “concretist” society of the USSR. Maciunas planned Fluxus as a collective based on the model of the Russian LEF (Left Front of the Arts). But these plans – e. g. for a performance tour by the artists on the Trans-Siberian Railway –, developed with polished communist rhetoric in manifestos and letters, were to remain no more than a utopia. After 1962, a different Fluxus East developed through creative exchange between Fluxus artists and artists/musicians of the former Eastern Bloc, leading to events including concerts with Fluxus compositions broadcast by Polish Radio (1964), Fluxus concerts in Lithuania (1966), Prague (1966) and Budapest (1969), and later a Fluxus Festival in Poznan (1977). Fluxus East represents a first stocktaking of the diverse Fluxus activities in the former Eastern Bloc; the exhibition shows parallel developments and artistic practices inspired by Fluxus, which are still adopted by some young artists today. Besides the “classic” Fluxus objects, the display will include photographs, films, correspondence, secret police files, interviews and recordings of music that document the presence of Fluxus in the former Eastern Bloc. As an interactive exhibition, Fluxus East aims to facilitate a profound encounter with ideas, works and texts – some presented as facsimiles to permit intense study. It is possible to play at Flux Ping Pong, and visitors are also invited to explore the Poïpoïdrome by Robert Filliou.
For further information please visit: www.fluxus-east.eu/
ACTIONS AND PERFORMANCES AT THE OPENING NIGHT
17 April 2008, 6 pm -10 pm
Endre Tót: Flyer Action (projection)
Eric Andersen: Opus 1068
Gábor Altorjay: General Pop
Geoffrey Hendricks: Grid 1983-2008, for Charlotte Moorman, nam June Paik and Emmett Williams
George Maciunas: Fluxus News-Policy 6/B/c/3
Variation: Breakdown-andante
(Homage to George Maciunas) Led by the Intermédia Créche Branch: Kati Bessenyei, Gergely Eörtzen Nagy, Zsolt Hajdu, Orsolya Lukács, Bence Rohánszky, Klára Simon, Tamás St.Auby, Dániel Tésy
FLUXUS SYMPOSIUM,
18 April 2008, 11.00 am – 8.00 pm
Hungarian-English translation service will be provided
11.00 am -2.00 pm
Introduction by Barnabás Bencsik, Director, Ludwig Museum-Museum of Contemporary Art
Petra Stegmann: Fluxus East
Jaroslaw Kozlowski: Knitting the NET
Eric Andersen: The Legendary East European Tour of 1964.
Maria Anna Potocka: Questions and Comments Hanging over Fluxus
Gábor Altorjay: Five tables
3.00 pm – 6.00 pm
László Beke: Hungarian Art and the Fluxus
Annamária Szoke: Miklós Erdély and the Fluxus
Ekaterina Obermair: 4′ 33″ Generation Generali
Led by: Ekaterina Obermair, St.Auby Tamás
Conducted by: Wolfgang Obermair
Pavlína Morganová: Czech Action Art in the 1960s and the 1970s
Andrea Bátorová: Parallels to Fluxus in Slovak Alternative Art in the 1960s and 1970s
Gábor Tóth: Secret Music
6.30 pm – 8.00 pm
Discussion with the participation of the artists, scholars and the audience.
Geoffrey Hendricks: A Tone for Roskilde
RELATED EVENTS DURING THE EXHIBITION TIME
Guided tours in the exhibition every Thursday at 6.00 pm, 7.00 pm. in English
18 May 2008 5.00 pm lecture by Milan Knízák with the support of the Czech Center
20 May 2008 6.00 pm lecture by István Antal and János Sugár
31 May 2008. in the framework of lumú 10-10
5 pm-7 pm Discussion about Military Secret by Miklós Erdély, Guests: Annamária Szoke, Dániel Erdély and András Kapitány
8.00 pm Fluxus Videos from the Artpool Archives–presented by Viktor Kotun communication researcher
RELATED EVENTS
16 April, 2008, 5.00 pm
Czech Action Art, exhibition opening in the Czech Center
6.30 pm
Robert Watts: Flux Med (1987), exhibition opening in Artpool P60 Geoffrey Hendricks speaks and performs some scores of Bob Watts
Ludwig Museum
Museum of Contemporary Art
PALACE OF ARTS
H-1095 Budapest, Komor Marcell u. 1
Phone (36 1) 555 3444
Fax: (36 1) 555 3458
info@lumu.hu
