1 00:00:11,900 --> 00:00:15,190 James Cuno: Hello, I’m Jim Cuno, president of the J. Paul Getty Trust. 2 00:00:16,129 --> 00:00:20,290 Welcome to Art + Ideas, a podcast in which I speak to artists, conservators, 3 00:00:20,910 --> 00:00:23,070 authors, and scholars about their work. 4 00:00:26,559 --> 00:00:30,060 Peter Frank: Everything was made of the most familiar objects. 5 00:00:30,300 --> 00:00:33,129 It could’ve been taken off a desk or a kitchen counter or 6 00:00:33,339 --> 00:00:35,969 something, and put into action. 7 00:00:36,690 --> 00:00:39,160 They were inert, but their meaning wasn’t. 8 00:00:40,440 --> 00:00:43,130 I thought to myself, this isn’t art; it’s better. 9 00:00:44,790 --> 00:00:48,180 Cuno: In this episode, I speak with Peter Frank about the avant-garde 10 00:00:48,190 --> 00:00:49,800 art movement known as Fluxus. 11 00:00:59,430 --> 00:01:02,959 Fluxus was an avant-garde international and interdisciplinary art movement 12 00:01:03,030 --> 00:01:07,010 of the 1960s and 1970s engaging artists as diverse as John Cage, 13 00:01:07,230 --> 00:01:08,910 Nam June Paik, and Yoko Ono. 14 00:01:09,679 --> 00:01:12,920 Over the years, the Getty Research Institute has collected works by these 15 00:01:12,920 --> 00:01:16,740 and other Fluxus artists, including Alison Knowles, Dick Higgins, George 16 00:01:16,740 --> 00:01:19,410 Maciunas, Ben Patterson, and Robert Watts. 17 00:01:20,400 --> 00:01:23,540 On the occasion of the Getty’s exhibition Fluxus Means Change: 18 00:01:23,690 --> 00:01:27,419 Jean Brown’s Avant-Garde Archive, I spoke with Peter Frank about the 19 00:01:27,420 --> 00:01:29,030 meaning and character of Fluxus. 20 00:01:29,779 --> 00:01:33,940 Peter is associate editor for Fabrik Magazine and former senior curator 21 00:01:33,940 --> 00:01:37,100 at the Riverside Art Museum as well as art critic at The Village 22 00:01:37,110 --> 00:01:39,120 Voice and The Soho Weekly News. 23 00:01:40,400 --> 00:01:42,470 Okay, thank you, Peter, for joining me on this podcast. 24 00:01:43,010 --> 00:01:43,550 Frank: Thank you. 25 00:01:44,120 --> 00:01:45,290 Cuno: And let’s begin with the term Fluxus. 26 00:01:46,609 --> 00:01:47,750 Give us a definition of it. 27 00:01:48,990 --> 00:01:52,670 Frank: Well, your upcoming exhibition says it all with 28 00:01:52,680 --> 00:01:54,900 the title, Fluxus means change. 29 00:01:55,700 --> 00:02:04,440 The term, derived from the Latin, indicates that nothing is permanent 30 00:02:04,830 --> 00:02:11,190 and invincible to metamorphosis, and that in fact, change is the nature 31 00:02:11,350 --> 00:02:13,430 of life, and particularly of art. 32 00:02:14,630 --> 00:02:15,819 Cuno: Who were its founders? 33 00:02:15,830 --> 00:02:18,190 And is it even right to say there were founders? 34 00:02:18,639 --> 00:02:19,339 Frank: Yes. 35 00:02:19,400 --> 00:02:23,180 As a movement, Fluxus, you could say, was founded by George Maciunas. 36 00:02:25,750 --> 00:02:33,519 As a sensibility, it existed before and survived the condition 37 00:02:33,520 --> 00:02:34,840 of Fluxus as a movement. 38 00:02:35,360 --> 00:02:40,089 Because what Maciunas sought to do, at least initially, with his 39 00:02:40,090 --> 00:02:44,330 Fluxus organizing, even before it was Fluxus, when he had the gallery 40 00:02:44,330 --> 00:02:50,000 in New York on Madison Avenue, he wanted to present what he and his 41 00:02:50,270 --> 00:02:56,730 friends and colleagues considered the cutting edge in various of the arts. 42 00:02:57,469 --> 00:03:02,670 And so I think George conceived of Fluxus not as a moment per se, with 43 00:03:02,670 --> 00:03:09,680 it own distinct practices, but as a clearing house for a range of related, 44 00:03:10,300 --> 00:03:15,460 but often distantly related, movements and practices, like Nouveau Réalisme 45 00:03:15,740 --> 00:03:20,660 in France and Italy or the nascent Pop art of the Independent Group in 46 00:03:20,660 --> 00:03:27,350 Britain, or happenings in Germany and the United States, and like that. 47 00:03:27,900 --> 00:03:30,579 It was called the New Sensibility, at the time. 48 00:03:31,759 --> 00:03:36,760 Fluxus emerged from a sensibility that itself was emerging in 49 00:03:36,760 --> 00:03:38,579 the latter half of the 1950s. 50 00:03:39,100 --> 00:03:43,820 And the stage was set for Fluxus itself to emerge in the very early ’60s. 51 00:03:44,380 --> 00:03:50,839 It consolidated in 1962, and endured until Maciunas’s own 52 00:03:50,839 --> 00:03:53,700 death in 1978, as a movement. 53 00:03:54,949 --> 00:04:00,990 But its most active period could be said to be 1962 to ’66. 54 00:04:02,260 --> 00:04:06,630 After that, Maciunas got involved—preoccupied with another 55 00:04:06,639 --> 00:04:09,419 project, that is, creating SoHo. 56 00:04:09,940 --> 00:04:16,399 He was one of the first to co-opt the loft buildings in SoHo for artists’ use. 57 00:04:18,410 --> 00:04:22,409 Cuno: To what extent was Fluxus international and interdisciplinary? 58 00:04:23,020 --> 00:04:23,940 Frank: Entirely. 59 00:04:24,849 --> 00:04:29,059 It always thought of itself, or the artists involved in Fluxus 60 00:04:29,580 --> 00:04:35,250 thought of themselves as operating on an international scale, and came 61 00:04:35,250 --> 00:04:45,260 from all forms of artwork—poetry, music, dance, visual art, theater. 62 00:04:46,240 --> 00:04:50,820 In fact, I think it’s historically accurate to note that if Fluxus 63 00:04:50,830 --> 00:04:54,790 began as any one type of movement, [it] began as a movement in music. 64 00:04:56,059 --> 00:04:58,590 Cuno: What was its relationship to Dada and Surrealism? 65 00:04:59,880 --> 00:05:04,070 Frank: Fluxus was self-consciously a direct descendant of Dada. 66 00:05:04,080 --> 00:05:09,500 In fact, the first concerts of Fluxus were called Neo-Dada in music. 67 00:05:11,650 --> 00:05:16,360 Those are the ones staged in Wiesbaden and other German sites in 1962. 68 00:05:17,320 --> 00:05:22,299 Relationship to Surrealism, on the other hand, was quite a bit more 69 00:05:22,299 --> 00:05:24,690 distant, and mostly through Dada. 70 00:05:26,070 --> 00:05:31,250 I think the relationship, not political but practical and aesthetic, 71 00:05:32,000 --> 00:05:36,920 to Futurism was stronger than to Surrealism, although the few Futurists 72 00:05:38,179 --> 00:05:45,480 practices that anticipated Fluxus, those weren’t so well known at the 73 00:05:45,480 --> 00:05:52,530 time to the artists and people around Fluxus as they became subsequently. 74 00:05:53,309 --> 00:05:59,249 These phenomena, historical phenomena were known of at that time in the 75 00:05:59,250 --> 00:06:04,440 early ’60s to American and Western European avant-garde audiences. 76 00:06:04,880 --> 00:06:06,349 But they weren’t known per se. 77 00:06:07,880 --> 00:06:10,050 Cuno: Was that all one generation you’re describing, or were there 78 00:06:10,050 --> 00:06:11,440 multiple generations involved? 79 00:06:12,139 --> 00:06:17,290 Frank: It was one generation, I would say, but with distinct roots in the 80 00:06:17,290 --> 00:06:23,040 practices of previous generations and the practices of previous avant-garde artists. 81 00:06:23,660 --> 00:06:24,920 Cuno: Would you consider Duchamp— 82 00:06:25,200 --> 00:06:27,770 Frank: Duchamp is the example of that. 83 00:06:28,220 --> 00:06:28,240 Cuno: Yeah. 84 00:06:28,240 --> 00:06:33,340 Frank: He was the grandfather of Fluxus and its entire new sensibility. 85 00:06:33,660 --> 00:06:35,889 Cuno: And where in the world are you talking about? 86 00:06:35,940 --> 00:06:36,710 Was it in New York? 87 00:06:36,720 --> 00:06:37,400 Was it in Paris? 88 00:06:37,400 --> 00:06:38,180 Was it in London? 89 00:06:38,490 --> 00:06:39,900 Was it in Los Angeles? 90 00:06:39,900 --> 00:06:42,480 Frank: To various extents, all of these places. 91 00:06:42,560 --> 00:06:46,579 Los Angeles, not so much at the time, although soon thereafter. 92 00:06:47,290 --> 00:06:49,679 The Bay Area, to a greater extent. 93 00:06:50,049 --> 00:06:56,159 But New York was the center, as far as American Fluxus and American 94 00:06:56,360 --> 00:07:00,170 post-neo Duchamp activity happening. 95 00:07:00,780 --> 00:07:07,610 In Europe, it was wherever the art centers were—Paris, Milan, Berlin, Cologne, 96 00:07:08,410 --> 00:07:10,960 London to a somewhat lesser extent. 97 00:07:12,240 --> 00:07:13,450 Cuno: What about John Cage? 98 00:07:13,790 --> 00:07:20,219 Frank: John Cage was, perhaps to his chagrin, a direct progenitor of Fluxus. 99 00:07:21,170 --> 00:07:27,050 In fact, one of the source moments for Fluxus was the seminar he 100 00:07:27,050 --> 00:07:33,049 conducted at The New School in New York between 1956 and ’58, in new 101 00:07:33,060 --> 00:07:34,960 music and new music performance. 102 00:07:36,300 --> 00:07:39,080 A number of the artists of all types who went on to found 103 00:07:39,080 --> 00:07:41,979 Fluxus attended those seminars. 104 00:07:42,580 --> 00:07:49,360 And when Maciunas signed up, Cage had left for a tour of Europe 105 00:07:49,940 --> 00:07:53,210 and put the electronic composer Richard Maxfield in his place. 106 00:07:53,760 --> 00:07:58,810 But Maxfield turned out to be of a like mind and a like perspective, and 107 00:07:58,810 --> 00:08:01,210 had a profound influence on Maciunas. 108 00:08:02,380 --> 00:08:04,389 This was the late ’50s. 109 00:08:04,670 --> 00:08:06,110 Or around 1960. 110 00:08:06,770 --> 00:08:10,880 It was as a result of going to that class with Maxfield that Maciunas attended 111 00:08:10,890 --> 00:08:15,369 the concerts and performances that were hosted by Yoko Ono and La Monte Young 112 00:08:15,719 --> 00:08:20,479 down on Chambers Street, which inspired Maciunas to open up a gallery uptown. 113 00:08:21,360 --> 00:08:22,600 Cuno: What about Dick Higgins? 114 00:08:23,160 --> 00:08:27,370 Frank: Dick was, certainly in English, the foremost theorist for Fluxus, 115 00:08:27,510 --> 00:08:31,180 intermedia, and related topics. 116 00:08:32,309 --> 00:08:36,939 And as a result, I consider him one of the most important artists 117 00:08:36,940 --> 00:08:42,309 in Fluxus and in fact, in artistic activity of the postwar era. 118 00:08:43,659 --> 00:08:45,449 Cuno: When did you first come across Fluxus? 119 00:08:46,740 --> 00:08:49,280 Frank: On December 27th, 1963. 120 00:08:50,210 --> 00:08:51,599 Cuno: And what happened on that day? 121 00:08:52,660 --> 00:08:57,250 Frank: I was 13 at the time, going around to galleries with my grandmother. 122 00:08:57,690 --> 00:09:01,310 I’d recently developed a passion for art and started going to galleries. 123 00:09:01,320 --> 00:09:03,020 This was, like, my second or third tour. 124 00:09:03,890 --> 00:09:06,579 This is in New York, of course, where I grew up. 125 00:09:07,260 --> 00:09:08,889 Walked into a gallery called Thibaut. 126 00:09:09,799 --> 00:09:13,790 The art critic Nicolas Calas had put together a show called The Hard 127 00:09:13,799 --> 00:09:19,790 Center, playing on the idea of the hard edge, which was the new anti-Abstract 128 00:09:19,790 --> 00:09:21,340 Expressionist abstract painting. 129 00:09:22,110 --> 00:09:23,370 Ellsworth Kelly and such. 130 00:09:24,590 --> 00:09:26,550 But no, it was the hard center, like a candy. 131 00:09:27,300 --> 00:09:32,630 I walk in and the first thing I see is a cane chair with a green rubber ball 132 00:09:32,639 --> 00:09:38,380 sitting on it, and a white walking stick, which I realized later had a little 133 00:09:38,380 --> 00:09:40,500 rainbow painted on its business end. 134 00:09:41,100 --> 00:09:45,359 I knew about Duchamp’s ready-mades already, so I could understand like 135 00:09:45,359 --> 00:09:49,390 that, in that format, in that context, but it seemed to have more dynamism. 136 00:09:50,640 --> 00:09:55,290 The Duchamp ready-mades seemed fixed; they were what they were. 137 00:09:55,770 --> 00:10:00,660 This chair, which turned out to be by George Brecht, seemed to be a performance. 138 00:10:00,810 --> 00:10:02,380 I could feel it immediately. 139 00:10:02,980 --> 00:10:08,249 It wasn’t just a thing; it was things in flux. 140 00:10:08,900 --> 00:10:12,349 I use that term retrospectively, but that’s how I felt at the time. 141 00:10:12,590 --> 00:10:14,900 Same with the other items in the show. 142 00:10:15,490 --> 00:10:19,380 There was a box that Walter De Maria had crafted out of wood, into 143 00:10:19,380 --> 00:10:21,350 which a two-by-four could be slid. 144 00:10:22,050 --> 00:10:23,660 There was a chessboard. 145 00:10:24,280 --> 00:10:29,540 Both sets were the same color—I can’t remember if white or black—which 146 00:10:29,540 --> 00:10:32,670 was Calas’s reconstruction of Yoko Ono’s chessboard. 147 00:10:32,670 --> 00:10:38,470 There was a stamp dispenser that dispensed stamps, the likes of which I’d never 148 00:10:38,470 --> 00:10:41,650 seen, which had been printed by Bob Watts. 149 00:10:42,580 --> 00:10:46,909 There were three lead yardsticks, one of which was shorter than the other 150 00:10:46,910 --> 00:10:49,390 two, that were crafted by Robert Morris. 151 00:10:49,990 --> 00:10:55,740 Etc., etc. And I looked around, and everything was made of 152 00:10:55,750 --> 00:10:57,280 the most familiar objects. 153 00:10:57,410 --> 00:11:00,340 It could’ve been taken off a desk or a kitchen counter or 154 00:11:00,490 --> 00:11:03,179 something, and put into action. 155 00:11:03,830 --> 00:11:04,199 They were— 156 00:11:12,360 --> 00:11:15,060 Cuno: So what happened in your life between then and your 157 00:11:15,349 --> 00:11:17,069 mature years of your late 20s? 158 00:11:18,440 --> 00:11:19,830 Frank: I continued to go to galleries. 159 00:11:19,830 --> 00:11:22,920 I also made contact with some of the Fluxus artists. 160 00:11:23,869 --> 00:11:25,160 Most of the ones in New York. 161 00:11:25,880 --> 00:11:31,430 Al Hansen, who was—had one foot in Fluxus and one foot everywhere 162 00:11:31,430 --> 00:11:36,579 else, I met a few months after that encounter with The Hard Center show. 163 00:11:37,429 --> 00:11:41,809 And he’d seen me running around the galleries before, so he slipped 164 00:11:41,809 --> 00:11:47,260 me a sheet of Bob Watts stamps, and I was his acolyte forever. 165 00:11:48,500 --> 00:11:50,620 I knew he did happenings, but I never saw one. 166 00:11:51,530 --> 00:11:54,530 But then he published a book about happenings a couple years later. 167 00:11:54,590 --> 00:11:58,769 He said, “Come with me down to the publisher’s and I’ll sell you a copy 168 00:11:58,770 --> 00:12:04,270 of my book for cost, wholesale.” Well, a book on happenings at a 169 00:12:04,270 --> 00:12:06,000 bargain price—who could resist? 170 00:12:07,850 --> 00:12:11,640 Cuno: Did you ever identity yourself as a Fluxus artist or an advocate? 171 00:12:12,410 --> 00:12:13,000 Frank: Yes. 172 00:12:14,370 --> 00:12:17,400 Artist, secondarily, at best. 173 00:12:17,400 --> 00:12:23,040 I mean, I’d done some written pieces and performance pieces as Fluxus. 174 00:12:23,210 --> 00:12:27,630 I think I didn’t dare consider myself a Fluxus artist or a Fluxus 175 00:12:28,130 --> 00:12:32,930 writer or—until I was fully on the New York scene, after finishing 176 00:12:32,930 --> 00:12:34,409 undergraduate school at Columbia. 177 00:12:35,580 --> 00:12:38,000 But an advocate, well, from the get-go. 178 00:12:38,450 --> 00:12:46,069 Certainly, from once I knew what Fluxus was all about, which I did as of 179 00:12:46,639 --> 00:12:52,069 meeting Dick Higgins and Alison Knowles, through Al Hansen, whose book had been 180 00:12:52,070 --> 00:12:54,139 published by Dick’s Something Else Press. 181 00:12:55,180 --> 00:12:58,810 Al took me down to meet Dick in April of 1966. 182 00:12:59,440 --> 00:13:06,019 Dick sold me his book, at full price, and I think Alison’s Great Bear Pamphlet. 183 00:13:07,490 --> 00:13:12,389 And the idea that these books were not books about art, but were art 184 00:13:12,390 --> 00:13:16,010 themselves opened up a world, another world of possibilities for me. 185 00:13:17,750 --> 00:13:24,840 First, I could see objects performing; now I could see books as artworks. 186 00:13:26,349 --> 00:13:32,490 And everything became energized with regard to everything else, 187 00:13:32,790 --> 00:13:34,010 I think the best way to put it. 188 00:13:34,230 --> 00:13:41,040 Certainly for somebody in his adolescent years looking for, I guess, revelation. 189 00:13:42,460 --> 00:13:45,340 Small revelations, so I could fit them into my daily life, 190 00:13:45,429 --> 00:13:46,980 but revelations nonetheless. 191 00:13:47,340 --> 00:13:48,569 Cuno: What were you doing at the time? 192 00:13:49,390 --> 00:13:50,490 Frank: I was in high school. 193 00:13:51,250 --> 00:13:53,810 I started college in 1968. 194 00:13:54,859 --> 00:13:57,930 But in high school, I actually staged a happening with a friend of mine. 195 00:13:59,170 --> 00:14:01,180 I staged a couple happenings, several happenings at summer camp. 196 00:14:02,020 --> 00:14:05,170 One year, it turns out that a fellow camper was a good friend of Allan 197 00:14:05,170 --> 00:14:09,930 Kaprow’s, so that made staging a happening at the camp imperative. 198 00:14:11,420 --> 00:14:14,569 Cuno: You wrote art criticism in New York for The Village Voice and 199 00:14:14,569 --> 00:14:17,070 the SoHo Weekly News in the ’70s. 200 00:14:17,950 --> 00:14:19,209 Was Fluxus on your beat? 201 00:14:19,480 --> 00:14:21,780 Frank: Very much so, as much as I could make it so. 202 00:14:22,350 --> 00:14:27,580 Fluxus was, to some extent, in eclipse in the ’70s and into the ’80s. 203 00:14:28,010 --> 00:14:31,170 People were aware of it, but it was last decade’s hot stuff. 204 00:14:32,570 --> 00:14:35,130 I, on the other hand, remained a true believer. 205 00:14:35,920 --> 00:14:40,770 Not at the expense of my appreciation of other phenomena, older and newer, 206 00:14:41,469 --> 00:14:45,730 more and less conservative, but as well. 207 00:14:46,710 --> 00:14:50,820 The Conceptual artists, who were coming out of Minimalism at the 208 00:14:50,820 --> 00:14:56,040 time, either rejected Fluxus or pretended they didn’t know it existed. 209 00:14:57,469 --> 00:14:58,709 I knew better than that. 210 00:15:00,100 --> 00:15:04,660 But the important thing was that Fluxus itself had prepared me 211 00:15:04,660 --> 00:15:05,939 for what they were proposing. 212 00:15:07,090 --> 00:15:11,780 And that in the work of someone like Lawrence Weiner or Robert Barry, I could 213 00:15:11,780 --> 00:15:19,010 see not simply visual art become verbal, but I could see visual art become poetry. 214 00:15:20,280 --> 00:15:27,500 I think the poetic aspects of someone like Weiner are, to this day, under 215 00:15:27,500 --> 00:15:29,510 stressed, not well understood. 216 00:15:30,099 --> 00:15:30,119 Cuno: Yeah. 217 00:15:30,650 --> 00:15:32,140 What brought you to Los Angeles? 218 00:15:32,210 --> 00:15:33,309 I think you came in 1988. 219 00:15:33,789 --> 00:15:35,700 Frank: At the end of ’87. 220 00:15:36,750 --> 00:15:38,839 As a native New Yorker, I felt that I—The 221 00:15:40,900 --> 00:15:46,420 New York art world, and New York in general, had come to be 222 00:15:47,059 --> 00:15:49,610 preoccupied with fame and money. 223 00:15:51,299 --> 00:15:57,030 And the discourse of art itself hadn’t disappeared, but it kind of 224 00:15:57,030 --> 00:16:02,020 had gotten underground and it wasn’t dictating what people thought about. 225 00:16:02,849 --> 00:16:08,999 I’d been coming to LA, and San Francisco for that matter, at least once a year 226 00:16:09,000 --> 00:16:16,260 since 1975 for professional reasons, and became increasingly taken with the fact 227 00:16:16,260 --> 00:16:23,900 that certainly in Southern California, the discourse was that of artists first. 228 00:16:24,580 --> 00:16:30,730 That there were so many artists here working in so many different ways, so many 229 00:16:30,730 --> 00:16:33,750 of them ways I hadn’t really seen before. 230 00:16:35,650 --> 00:16:42,780 And they suffered from lack of commercial success, but not lack of exposure. 231 00:16:43,639 --> 00:16:49,300 There was, you know, a sprawling network of college campus galleries, where 232 00:16:49,300 --> 00:16:52,090 they would show, or alternate spaces. 233 00:16:53,680 --> 00:16:56,500 And also employ—would employ them as teachers. 234 00:16:58,400 --> 00:17:02,350 Cuno: You mentioned the idea that colleges and universities provided 235 00:17:02,380 --> 00:17:04,069 good spaces for performance. 236 00:17:04,510 --> 00:17:08,000 I’m thinking of Mills College, as far north as the Oakland 237 00:17:08,060 --> 00:17:10,300 area, but also Pomona College. 238 00:17:10,349 --> 00:17:13,429 Frank: Not just performance, but also exhibiting static work. 239 00:17:14,089 --> 00:17:19,970 But Mills is, early on, Mills had an historic position in that kind of thing 240 00:17:20,829 --> 00:17:23,369 because it was around much earlier. 241 00:17:23,980 --> 00:17:27,580 And in fact, it was a great place to go for music because it employed 242 00:17:27,580 --> 00:17:30,570 a number of refugees from Europe. 243 00:17:31,250 --> 00:17:32,360 Cuno: Darius Milhaud. 244 00:17:32,360 --> 00:17:33,959 Frank: Darius Milhaud, first and foremost. 245 00:17:34,330 --> 00:17:36,530 And Steve Reich studied with Darius Milhaud. 246 00:17:36,559 --> 00:17:36,879 Cuno: Yeah. 247 00:17:37,160 --> 00:17:37,840 Frank: That’s perfect. 248 00:17:38,270 --> 00:17:38,620 Cuno: Yeah. 249 00:17:40,150 --> 00:17:43,630 Now, the Getty Research Institute, or the GRI, as you know we call 250 00:17:43,630 --> 00:17:45,959 it, has the papers of Dick Higgins. 251 00:17:46,820 --> 00:17:49,550 Tell us about Dick Higgins and what his role was like in the develop of Fluxus. 252 00:17:51,460 --> 00:17:54,430 Frank: As I said, Dick was a central figure in Fluxus. 253 00:17:55,360 --> 00:18:01,430 And its foremost theorist, certainly in English, because he brought 254 00:18:01,430 --> 00:18:07,650 forth the intermedia theory, and you could even say Fluxus theory. 255 00:18:08,480 --> 00:18:14,879 Dick was the one who could most successfully, simply, and inventively 256 00:18:15,969 --> 00:18:21,080 theorize the practices and the mindset associated with Fluxus. 257 00:18:21,860 --> 00:18:27,000 And I mean, a number of the participants in Fluxus, Maciunas not least, were 258 00:18:27,000 --> 00:18:32,660 resistant to this kind of theorizing, because they felt it pinned down Fluxus. 259 00:18:33,240 --> 00:18:33,979 But it didn’t. 260 00:18:34,629 --> 00:18:37,490 In fact, it kind of did just the opposite. 261 00:18:37,860 --> 00:18:43,639 It dissolved the gesture and the object into the potential. 262 00:18:46,870 --> 00:18:50,770 Cuno: Among other things, Emmet Williams, I think, was the editor of Dick Higgins’s 263 00:18:50,770 --> 00:18:54,909 Something Else Press, for which you wrote the definitive bibliography. 264 00:18:55,810 --> 00:18:59,410 Tell us more about Emmett Williams and about the press, how important it was. 265 00:18:59,560 --> 00:19:04,230 Frank: Well, Emmett was one of the leading Concrete poets, particularly in English, 266 00:19:05,070 --> 00:19:10,840 and was well connected to the Concrete and visual poetry practice around the world. 267 00:19:11,980 --> 00:19:13,679 Cuno: Maybe our listeners don’t know what that means. 268 00:19:13,680 --> 00:19:14,720 Tell us about Concrete poetry. 269 00:19:14,720 --> 00:19:21,030 Frank: Concrete poetry is an intermedium between poetry and visual art. 270 00:19:21,950 --> 00:19:26,949 Visual poetry is probably the best way of describing the context in which 271 00:19:27,040 --> 00:19:31,850 Concrete poetry appears, but Concrete poetry is visual only in its typography. 272 00:19:32,530 --> 00:19:37,060 Whereas all visual poetry generally incorporates non-typographical 273 00:19:37,600 --> 00:19:39,620 elements in the work. 274 00:19:40,379 --> 00:19:43,569 Cuno: Well, tell us about this Something Else Press then, for which Emmett Williams 275 00:19:43,570 --> 00:19:46,049 worked, and it was Dick Higgins’s press. 276 00:19:47,190 --> 00:19:50,560 Frank: When Dick and his wife Alice Knowles return from their European 277 00:19:50,560 --> 00:19:54,230 trip, they were—they had been given a list of names to contact, 278 00:19:54,800 --> 00:19:59,690 by the composer Earle Brown, who was in Cage’s circle at the time. 279 00:20:00,160 --> 00:20:04,780 And they made contact with Maciunas in Wiesbaden, where Maciunas was 280 00:20:04,780 --> 00:20:06,809 working on the U.S. Army base. 281 00:20:07,390 --> 00:20:12,350 And I think this was after the first Neo-Dada concert, 282 00:20:12,350 --> 00:20:14,390 but before any of the others. 283 00:20:15,230 --> 00:20:20,000 So they made contact with Maciunas in Europe. 284 00:20:20,210 --> 00:20:22,019 They came back to New York from Europe. 285 00:20:22,019 --> 00:20:25,899 Then Maciunas returned to New York and set up kind of a 286 00:20:25,920 --> 00:20:29,050 Fluxus outpost on Canal Street. 287 00:20:30,250 --> 00:20:34,189 But Maciunas would come up with ideas for—great ideas for 288 00:20:34,190 --> 00:20:36,140 projects and never finish them. 289 00:20:36,610 --> 00:20:38,020 Would start them and never finish them. 290 00:20:38,639 --> 00:20:44,790 Including publications, book publications, specifically a book that Dick had written. 291 00:20:45,370 --> 00:20:47,240 Actually, a back-to-back double book. 292 00:20:47,800 --> 00:20:51,340 One book was called Jefferson’s Birthday, the other one, Postface. 293 00:20:52,169 --> 00:20:57,380 And Postface was a theoretical exegesis, whereas Jefferson’s Birthday was a 294 00:20:57,429 --> 00:21:00,190 compendium of written performance pieces. 295 00:21:01,760 --> 00:21:05,760 Maciunas said he’d publish it; never got around to it. 296 00:21:06,340 --> 00:21:10,399 So Dick took the manuscript back from him and published it himself. 297 00:21:10,679 --> 00:21:12,730 And that was beginning of Something Else Press. 298 00:21:13,620 --> 00:21:17,429 Once Dick found out that he could do it, he wanted to do it for 299 00:21:17,430 --> 00:21:20,930 his friends in and beside Fluxus. 300 00:21:21,800 --> 00:21:26,350 And also, he had some experience as a typesetter and a book designer. 301 00:21:27,030 --> 00:21:33,730 So he wanted to create books as art objects, or books of the quality 302 00:21:33,730 --> 00:21:39,070 of art objects, collectible books, books that were integrally conceived. 303 00:21:40,530 --> 00:21:42,540 Cuno: Now, I mentioned the GRI a couple of times. 304 00:21:43,050 --> 00:21:46,060 And I should say that it has the collection of the patrons and collectors 305 00:21:46,420 --> 00:21:50,330 Jean and Leonard Brown, which will be the subject of an exhibition and book. 306 00:21:50,700 --> 00:21:53,879 The book, you’ve already mentioned, and its title, Fluxus Means Change. 307 00:21:54,619 --> 00:21:59,270 And it will include correspondence with Duchamp, but also Fluxus works by George 308 00:21:59,310 --> 00:22:05,149 Maciunas and Nam June Paik, and still more boxes of gathered materials of 309 00:22:05,149 --> 00:22:06,720 George Brecht, you’ve already mentioned. 310 00:22:07,299 --> 00:22:09,389 This would be a good time to take stock of Fluxus. 311 00:22:09,889 --> 00:22:12,329 What do you think Fluxus’s reputation is now? 312 00:22:14,750 --> 00:22:21,289 Frank: Fluxus has taken on the kind of twinkle of history for younger artists 313 00:22:21,349 --> 00:22:26,850 and scholars, the same way Dada did in the ’60s, when Fluxus was emerging. 314 00:22:27,820 --> 00:22:35,520 And it’s charming and very encouraging to see these attempts at not 315 00:22:35,520 --> 00:22:40,540 necessarily understanding Fluxus, but taking inspiration from it, 316 00:22:41,309 --> 00:22:44,949 understanding it in a motivational way. 317 00:22:45,670 --> 00:22:49,630 Fluxus doesn’t want to be understood as a cadaver to be dissected. 318 00:22:49,630 --> 00:22:54,350 It wants to be understand as a, I think, a costume to be worn. 319 00:22:56,889 --> 00:22:58,300 Cuno: What do you think will be next for Fluxus? 320 00:23:01,040 --> 00:23:09,410 Frank: Further scholarly investigation and certainly, an investigation of its 321 00:23:09,820 --> 00:23:19,100 early engagement of women, artists of color, and artists from around the world, 322 00:23:19,110 --> 00:23:21,800 not just America and Western Europe. 323 00:23:23,080 --> 00:23:28,590 And I should say of LGBTQ artists. 324 00:23:29,420 --> 00:23:34,850 And that in fact, these identity issues with which we’re so concerned now 325 00:23:35,530 --> 00:23:38,420 were motivational to Fluxus artists. 326 00:23:39,160 --> 00:23:43,710 Not so much when they came together in the ’60s, but by the ’70s, you 327 00:23:43,710 --> 00:23:50,180 find that Fluxus artists and their compeers were active in the feminist 328 00:23:50,180 --> 00:23:52,169 movement in New York, in Japan. 329 00:23:53,469 --> 00:23:57,970 Were engaged in community support and activity. 330 00:23:58,760 --> 00:24:03,129 Benjamin Patterson took a decade out from mark making to work 331 00:24:03,130 --> 00:24:04,600 as a social worker in Harlem. 332 00:24:06,100 --> 00:24:12,260 And that there was an unspoken sense of, this kind of thinking is 333 00:24:12,260 --> 00:24:14,659 available to and applies to everybody. 334 00:24:15,469 --> 00:24:20,480 And the sense of outsider status that so many of the artists in and 335 00:24:20,490 --> 00:24:26,579 around Fluxus felt made identifying as something else in the wider world 336 00:24:27,570 --> 00:24:29,559 that much easier and more logical. 337 00:24:32,429 --> 00:24:34,430 Cuno: What’s next for you, Peter Frank? 338 00:24:38,280 --> 00:24:45,839 Frank: Keep my eye out for newer and advanced interpretations of Fluxus, to see 339 00:24:46,700 --> 00:24:55,370 Fluxus occupy its historical place without settling into it, and to continue my own 340 00:24:55,380 --> 00:25:01,380 work writing about and exhibiting artwork of all types, hoping that some of that 341 00:25:01,400 --> 00:25:08,290 work will flash a bit of the Fluxus DNA. 342 00:25:08,290 --> 00:25:11,009 Cuno: Thanks again, Peter, for speaking with me and for sharing 343 00:25:11,010 --> 00:25:11,980 your understanding of Fluxus. 344 00:25:13,160 --> 00:25:16,030 I look forward to seeing you at the opening of the exhibition Fluxus Means 345 00:25:16,030 --> 00:25:18,480 Change: Jean Brown’s Avant-Garde Archive. 346 00:25:18,990 --> 00:25:19,340 Thank you. 347 00:25:19,840 --> 00:25:20,260 Frank: Thank you. 348 00:25:27,179 --> 00:25:30,779 Cuno: Fluxus Means Change: Jean Brown’s Avant-Garde Archive is 349 00:25:30,780 --> 00:25:34,270 on view at the Getty Research Institute through January 2, 2022. 350 00:25:39,880 --> 00:25:43,669 This episode was produced by Zoe Goldman, with audio production by Gideon Brower 351 00:25:44,040 --> 00:25:45,810 and mixing by Mike Dodge Weiskopf. 352 00:25:46,850 --> 00:25:49,970 Our theme music comes from the “The Dharma at Big Sur” composed 353 00:25:49,970 --> 00:25:53,080 by John Adams, for the opening of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los 354 00:25:53,080 --> 00:25:57,320 Angeles in 2003, and is licensed with permission from Hendon Music. 355 00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:04,919 Look for new episodes of Art + Ideas every other Wednesday, subscribe 356 00:26:04,920 --> 00:26:08,450 on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other podcast platforms. 357 00:26:09,160 --> 00:26:14,210 For photos, transcripts, and more resources, visit getty.edu/podcasts 358 00:26:14,860 --> 00:26:18,450 or if you have a question, or an idea for an upcoming episode, write 359 00:26:18,450 --> 00:26:20,680 to us at podcasts at getty.edu. 360 00:26:21,280 --> 00:26:22,009 Thanks for listening.