Another element that contributed to Fluxus's lack of acknowledged
influence in the arts (and the same lack might apply to other distinct
art groups as well: Judson to some extent, the early New York video
artists, the Living Theater, the Wooster Group, the various "body"
artists, the avant-garde filmmakers, the art and technology people, and
many others) was the fact that the art world � New York's and everyone
else's � was undergoing an enormous population explosion accompanied by
vigorous aesthetic, moral and economic challenges from many quarters
starting in the mid to late sixties. There was so much change going on
it was hard not to get lost in the shuffle.
These were not just rebellious times on the streets and campuses; they
were rebellious times in the arts as well, and not just for Fluxus. The
rebellion went way beyond the adoption of several kinds of
European-influenced conceptual art by galleries and museums.
In fact, by 1970 conceptual art as understood by writers like Lucy
Lippard or Germano Celant and elegantly and sanitarily practiced by
artists like Hanne Darboven, Mel Bochner, the Bechers, Dan Graham, etc.,
was well on the way to gallery and museum acceptance.
But what were the galleries and museums to make of artists like John
Fisher, the bread man, who baked bread in industrial quantities and
filled whole rooms with the stuff; or the numbers of video artists who
loudly erupted on the scene around 1970, clamoring for support and
grossing out the gallerists with hard-to-watch real-time black-and-white
tapes of indeterminate, unpredictable and sometimes taboo subject
matter?
Or Newton and Helen Harrison who made art out of raising crabs? Or Tosun
Bayrak, the wildman from Rutgers, who, in the fall of 1970, covered
Prince Street between Mercer and Greene with white butcher paper, under
which he gradually revealed large piles of shit, a copulating couple, a
vast assortment of slaughterhouse leftovers, and who then began pouring
large quantities of animal blood from 55 gallon drums off the roof of
96-98 Prince Street, right past Paula Cooper's windows. On a Saturday,
yet! She was fit to be tied! But there was nothing she could do. He had
a permit!
Well, these are only a few colorful examples.There were thousands of
artists at that time chopping at the roots of the establishment
artworld.
For one thing, more young people were graduating from art schools of
various types than ever before. There was a baby-boom in Art! Also,
many college dropouts began filtering into the arts in direct and
indirect ways. Rightfully used to thinking of their government and
institutions as being run by criminals and fools, they tended to think
of leaders in the artworld in quite the same way. Established artists,
critics, musem directors, funding administrators, gallery owners (the pc
term "gallerists" was not yet in vogue) were all fair game for irony,
sarcasm, subversion and "dirty tricks." It was an exciting time!
Secondly, a number of important public funding programs like the New
York State Council on the Arts and the NEA had received very large
budget increases and were expanding their programs exponentially. Dance
companies, theater companies, art presenting organizations (of which the
Kitchen was only the most well-known!), non-profit galleries of all
kinds (Hallwalls, Artist's Space, Franklin Furnace, the Clocktower,
Synapse, and many more etceteras all over the state, and, to a lesser
degree, the nation), popped up like earthworms after a rain. And a good
many of the artists involved with these groups and facilities took an
adversarial view of standard artworld fare while, at the same time,
hoping to make their own impact on the cultural scene. The Rockefeller
Foundation also, along with the Guggenheim Foundation, got into the
spirit of things and began to look farther afield than they had
previously for opportunities to give support.
The result, of course, was a rich explosion of art and art activity; one
of the very best and liveliest art periods ever to come along, the
consequences of which are still playing themselves out thirty years
later. The artists of the sixties and seventies managed to completely
change the face of art in America, much to the dismay of many who
thought that art was based on fixed principles (and are still sore about
it!).
And Fluxus was in there, too. But not by itself.
And if you're really nice, someday I'll tell you about the New York
Avant-Garde Festivals and Charlotte Moorman, a saint, in my book, and
one of the really great people of her time and certainly as important in
any meaningful sense as that cranky old fart, George Maciunas.
Davidson
