April 10 – May 15, 1982
Artists Space
Young Fluxus
Artists Space presents Young Fluxus, an exhibition which will explore the growth of the elusive and influential Fluxus movement from a new perspective: through participants who came to Fluxus after its first generation. The exhibition which runs from April 10 through May 15, 1982 will present work by John Armleder, Don Boyd, Jean Dupuy, Rimma and Valery Gerlovin, J.H. Kocman, Carla Liss, Larry V. Miller, Endre Tot, Peter van Riper, Yoshimasa Wada. The Young Fluxus show was organized by veteran Fluxus artist Ken Friedman and by Peter Frank, a critic know for his expertise in contemporary art, especially intermedia.
Fluxus, termed various a movement, a group and a philosophy, came together in the early '60s as focal point for concerns ranging from intermedia and conceptual art to video, film and multiples. Through an innovative series of exhibitions, festivals, publications, films and through centers which can be considered forerunners of today's alternative spaces, Fluxus offered a forum to experimental artistic ideas and attitudes which could not be easily accomodated by the established art world of the late '50s and early '60s. The range of Fluxus ideas is visible in the dramatic individuality of the first, or "classic," Fluxus members: among them Joseph Beuys, George Brecht, Bici Forbes, Ken Friedman, Geoff Hendricks, Per Kirkeby, Alison Knowles, Shigeko Kubota, Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik, Mieko Shiomi, Yusunao Tone, Ben Vautier, Wolf Vostell, Dick Higgins, Bob Watts, Emmett Williams and the late George Macunias.
The spread and growth of Fluxus helped to create the climate for the artistic innovations which market the late '60s and transformed our notion of art in the '70s, visible today not only in attitudes toward performance, construction, and ephemeral art forms, but even in the expanded ideas which have entered painting and sculpture in the '80s. This exhibition explores the directions and attitudes in art taken by eleven of the artists most directly involved in Fluxus.
John Armleder, a Swiss artist, is a painter whose works include printed books and collages.
Don Boyd, a sculptor from South Dakota, makes objects from leather and lead. Boyd, who is director of Fluxus West, also publishes pamphlets and Fluxus treatises.
Jean Dupuy is well known in New York for structuring performance events in which large numbers of artists have participated. In addition to his performance activity, Dupuy constructs comical and elaborate machines that examine and poke fun at scientific processes.
Rimma and Valery Gerlovin, who live in New York and work collaboratively, are emigres from the Soviet Union. Rimma's geometric box objects and Valery's robots and mechanical projects combine sensibilities indicative of their Russian heritage: community spirit, earthiness and creative visions of a mechanical age.
J.H. Kocman is a Czechoslovakian artist who in the early '70s pioneered the use of rubber stamps as a means of communication. Kocman, also a veterinarian, examines the working of a nature through process pieces, most recently by deconstructing objects to make paper.
Carla Liss' artistic investigations are concentrated in the field of physics. Liss lives in New York and her pieces take the form of water constructions and X-ray works.
Larry V. Miller is a performance artist whose work contemplates the opposite of nature and culture and the human condition. Though Miller now lives in New York, his southern background has influenced his use of religious allegory in recent performance work.
Endre Tot, inventor of "TOTalkunst," lives in Cologne, West Germany. For many years, Tot's artistic preoccupation with the numeral zero lead him to make books covered with zeros. More recently, in Berlin, he played Chess for a year with Fluxus artist Ben Vautier.
Peter van Riper, though a westerner, lived in the Far East for a number of years and participated in activities of the Gutai group. Van Riper's holography and paper performance pieces reveal an interest in craft traditions, also a concern of Japanese Fluxus artists.
Yoshimasa Wada, who lives in New York, creates large wind instruments in the form of horns and machines. Wada's concerns are both meditational and humorous and his works suggest a broad range of musical styles.
Nothing here yet...
Young Fluxus has been made possible by a Special Exhibitions grant from the Museums Program of the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.
Artists Space's regular exhibition program is sponsored by New York State Council on the Arts, The National Endowment for the Arts, the Jerome Foundation, the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, the Samuel Rubin Foundation and the Walter Foundation. Corporate sponsors are: American Can Company, the Art Dealers Association, AT&T Long Lines, Consolidated Edison, Exxon Corporation, I.M. Pei & Partners, Philip Morris Incorporated.
