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Indepth Arts News:
"Fluxus Games Exhibition Mixes Hijinks and High Art"
2001-06-16 until 2001-12-31
MASS MoCA
North Adams, MA,
USA United States of America
How would you play chess on a backgammon board
or use a deck of 52 jokers or win a bicycle race in which the goal is to
be the last one across the finish lineNULL In the 1970's, Fluxus artists
created games that subverted the seriousness of high art and encouraged
participants to celebrate everyday occurrences rather than static art
objects. This summer and fall MASS MoCA will present an important exhibition
of more than 70 Fluxus games and artifacts from the Gilbert and Lila
Silverman Fluxus Collection Foundation, Detroit, one of the three most
important and extensive collections of Fluxus objects in the world.
Created in 1961 by the artist George Maciunas, the term Fluxus was
originally intended as the title of a magazine that would document new art.
Fluxus, a word chosen by Maciunas for its connotation of change, became a
loose association of artists, some of whom were making work that the
original Fluxus publication meant to document. Fluxus drew upon a
combination of sources that included Dada, Duchamp's readymades, Surrealism,
Futurism, Spike Jones, and the music of John Cage to counter the belief that
the experience of art was superior to that of life.
Games became an important means for Fluxus artists to disseminate and
explore their ideas about art. Because games lend themselves to humor, often
require physical participation, and undermine the seriousness of art that
certain Fluxus artists opposed, they were a perfect medium for Fluxus
expression and experimentation.
More intimate Fluxus games took the form of boxes containing scores, or
instructions for playing the games, altered decks of cards, and manipulated
chess sets, to name just a few. Almost all Fluxus games were published as
Fluxus editions by George Maciunas. He offered the editions for sale at his
Fluxshop on Canal Street in New York City or at Fluxfests, which were Fluxus
performances that occurred in Europe and the United States. The editions,
including the games, were purposely inexpensive again setting themselves
apart from the high prices that are associated with fine art. The boxed
games, for example, were priced around $5, and the chess sets averaged $40.
Occasionally Fluxus games were played as events, or Fluxfests, and only the
equipment, props, or posters for the games remain. One such Fluxfest, held
at Douglass College in New Brunswick, New Jersey, in February 1970, included
soccer played on stilts, a javelin event that substituted a balloon for a
javelin, and table tennis played with paddles with holes in the center or
corrugated metal cans glued onto the paddle.
On the surface, Fluxus games seem simple enough. The components of the games
and the instructions for playing are pared down, direct, and unembellished.
The appearance of simplicity, however, collapses once we attempt to play the
games. Most Fluxus games were not straightforward. In fact, many of the
games were not even possible to complete with the given instructions
presenting roadblocks and built-in absurdities.
Despite their sense of play, humor, and diversion, ultimately games are
about rules. A deck of jokers makes for a good laugh, but it would be
impossible to play most card games with such a deck. It would be just as
difficult and strange to play chess on a backgammon board. If one did, the
game would be neither chess nor backgammon; but rather a new hybrid. In
order to play cards with a deck of jokers or play chess on a backgammon
table, the rules must change. The inability to play some of the Fluxus games
implies more than a simple gag. Fluxus games comment on the rules of art
making, buying, selling, and canonizing; the Fluxus game transforming itself
into an extended critique of art itself.
Fluxus Games at MASS MoCA, which opens on June 16 and will be on view
through December 2001, compliments MASS MoCA's major exhibition Game Show,
which features 30 artist-designed obstacle courses, word games, puzzles, and
video games by some of the most important artists working today. On June
16, MASS MoCA will open an additional concurrent exhibition of work by
Öyvind Fahlström.
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