Julia Robinson: Working In the Spirit of Fluxus

Robinson, Julia; Hölling, Hanna Barbara; Wielocha, Aga; Ellis, Josephine Lucy (25 May 2023). Julia Robinson: Working In the Spirit of Fluxus In: Thursday Lecture seminar series. Bern. 25 May 2023.

How do museums handle the legacy of a collectivist initiative whose life and energy had a great deal to do with its avoidance of museums, galleries, and the art market? More comfortable in auditoria, and in the streets, Fluxus artists produced scores and performances, first of all. When they did contribute objects—found items, invented games, balls, lengths of string, playing cards, film strips, chess pieces, photographs, etc.—they were non-autonomous to the extreme, relying on activation by playing, performing, or relating to other items in groups, small and large. George Maciunas, who was on the receiving end of this ‘content,’ said that Fluxus was producing “anti-commodities.” What is left behind is only valuable if this context of precarious acts, performative strategies, and ephemeral gestures is preserved along with its fragile material residue. This lecture addresses the nature of this context by specifying score types, considering viable modes of activation—or, as the artists called it, realization—and the importance of Fluxus for historical analyses of contemporary art.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Speech)
Division/Institute:	Bern Academy of the Arts Bern Academy of the Arts > Institute Materiality in Art and Culture Bern Academy of the Arts > Institute Materiality in Art and Culture > Contemporary Art and Media
Name:	Robinson, Julia; Hölling, Hanna Barbara0000-0002-3063-4405; Wielocha, Aga0000-0001-8751-9574 and Ellis, Josephine Lucy
Subjects:	N Fine Arts > N Visual arts (General) For photography, see TR N Fine Arts > NX Arts in general
Funders:	[7] Swiss National Science Foundation
Projects:	[199] Activating Fluxus Official URL
Language:	English
Submitter:	Hanna Barbara Hölling
Date Deposited:	08 Sep 2023 10:31
Last Modified:	08 Sep 2023 10:31
Related URLs:	Author Publisher
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Fluxus, event, archive, score, George Brecht
URI:	https://arbor.bfh.ch/id/eprint/19843