George announced on any number of occasions grand plans to publish 'the complete works' or 'the collected works' of Fluxus artists, La Monte Young, Emmett Williams and Jackson Mac Low among them. His failure to do so -- or their unwillingness to permit George sole authority over their work under the Fluxus aegis, led to some of the fractures within Fluxus. Other plans to publish major selections of work never came to fruition. This led in Dick Higgins' case to the publication of Postface/Jefferson's Birthday, and to the establishment of the legendary Something Else Press (and yet another schism in Fluxus). In my case, it led to a series of carbon- copy, xerox and mimeograph editions of my events and scores during the 60s, while waiting for George, and by the end of the 60s, to exhibitions and publications of the scores in the many different forms and contexts in which they have been seen since. )I was always careful to copyright them to Fluxus while waiting for George to finish the boxed Fluxus edition, which, as with so many of George's wonderful plans, remained unfinished.)
George did realize boxed editions of many important suites of event scores.The Magna Carta of boxed event structures was surely George Brecht's WaterYam, a quintessential Fluxus edition. Other scores in boxed editions included work by Takehisa Kosugi, Mieko Shiomi, Robert Watts, Albert M. Fine, Eric Andersen, and Ben Vautier. Some of the Fluxus artists also realized different editions of their own pieces. The best known and most influential of these was Yoko Ono's Grapefruit, a milestone in the evolution of conceptual art and performance art, and without doubt the best known and most widely distributed publication in this genre. A number of us followed Yoko's example in creating our own editions of scores. Dick Higgins, Bengt af Klintberg, Milan Knizak, and I all took this path. As Grapefruit was, these compilations were later expanded and issued by other publishers who developed an interest in the work.
The Fluxus Performance Workbook is the largest compilation of scores available to date in one volume. Even so, I estimate that it represents less than 10% of the event structures and score notations created by Fluxus artists. Space was a challenge here -- and availability of the scores themselves was an even greater limiting factor. Fluxus event notations have several features that distinguish them from those art forms to which they bear a relationship. They are musical, but their musicality lies in the ability of anyone to perform the work from the notation, not in the need for virtuous performance. You can perform a Fluxus event in virtuoso or bravura style, and you can perform it straight-out, with the unvarnished, direct style that so many Fluxists prefer. You can give it a fast pace, jamming each piece into the minimal time possible as Ben Vautier does, go for a slow, meditative rhythm as Alison Knowles does, or strike a balance as you'll see in the concerts organized by Dick Higgins or Larry Miller. Pieces can have powerful torque, energized and dramatic, as in the work of Milan Knizak, the earthy folkloric touch seen in Bengt af Klintberg's pieces, or the atmospheric radiance, spiritual and dazzling, that is seen in Beuys's work. But whichever attitude, whichever style, the artists who created the event works are 'composers' of these pieces. When a Fluxus artist performs a Fluxus event, it's like Bach playing Bach or Copeland conducting Copeland: the work is embodied in the notation, it is open to many interpretations, and the creator need not be present for a true interpretation to be realized. As has happened more than once in the history of performing art, other interpreters or performers than the creator of the work have sometimes found the center of the work better and released it more fully than the artist who created the piece. The artists gives birth to the piece, but the interpreter gives it its voice. That is why these works are at heart musical.
The distinction between musicality and a painterly sensibility is important to understanding this work. Performance art is signature art: the creator does it, and without the artist, the work is no longer itself. Only Beuys can have done a Beuys performance. The same is generally true of happenings: only Vostell can have done a Vostell happening. And of those Fluxus artists like Knizak or Higgins who created happenings as well as events, their event scores are open to all, but their happenings were essentially restricted to creation under their personal guidance.
There is an important distinction that George Maciunas drew between the sensibility of the happening and the sensibility of the event. He referred to happenings as 'neo-Baroque' theater, a phrase that summoned up the elaborate flourishes of European Baroque architecture and music, as opposed to the concentrated, austere focus of Japanese poetry and its architecture which was reflected in the event form that Maciunas termed 'neo-Haiku theater.' Yoko Ono characterized this work as having an 'event bent,' while I created a term that caught both the meditation and the humor in Fluxus pieces with the term 'Zen vaudeville.' In every respect, the heritage of Japan and of Zen Buddhism has influenced the development of Fluxus, and nowhere more clearly than in the event as a form of art to be enacted, seen and contemplated.
Another important aspect of the event is its philosophical basis. One may perform an event, realize it, follow through a notation to develop physical objects and processes -- or, perhaps, just think about it. Each of these avenues of realization and perception is equally valid. Each has its unique rewards and benefits. In annotated, contemplated form, you can carry a great many concerts and exhibitions in your pocket. This workbook is an example. In realized, physical form, you can turn a few notes and scores into an evening of meditation, an evening of entertainment, or even a museum filled with physical projects. The event structure allows for all these.
The workbook is designed for you to realize and interpret the events as you wish. The rules for performing them are simple: when you present a program of Fluxus events, you may interpret the pieces as you wish, you must call it a 'Fluxconcert,' and you must carefully credit each artist with his or her works by title and (when available) by date. Several of us are happy to work with people who want to develop event structure workshops or to create Fluxconcerts.
With the approach of the 30th anniversary of Fluxus in 1992, two
projects are under way that will gather more event scores together and
make them available in comprehensive form. Ben Vautier and Gino Di Maggio
are preparing a book of Fluxus scores and notations which will be larger
and substantially more complete than this workbook. Timothy Porges and
I are developing an exhibition of art works in scored notation form, including
works by Fluxus artists as well as work by others. The exhibition will
tour the United States and Europe, and it will include the encyclopedic
compilation of scores proposed so long ago by George Maciunas.
Publishing History
This article was published as 'Getting into Events.' (in) Fluxus Performance Workbook. Ken Friedman, ed. [El Djarida, special issue] Trondheim, 1990: El Djarida.
Copyright © 1990 by Ken Friedman. All rights reserved.
This text may be quoted and printed freely with proper acknowledgment.