Owen Smith wrote (sorry, I keep trying to finsih with my late in posts...)
jeudi 14 septembre 2000 17:24
Objet : Re: FLUXLIST: response Sol
> Over the last few years as I have explored Fluxus I have become
> increasingly dissatisfied with traditional scholarly or historical
> approaches to the subject of Fluxus (mine included).
As a wanna-be scholar I can understand your circumspection, which the usual
circumpstection that any historian or scholar shall have to his subject. But
what I seealso is, that all the people that have tried to work ON Fluxus as
a subject of research or reflexion has come to such a careful attitude
towards it. This might be approached to the openness claimed by Fluxus, and
the direct approach that most of the people on the list can have with this
subject. And I must admitt, that I cannot understand why Fluxus should avoid
the historical perspective or be killed by it. Maybe it is the proof that I
haven't work enought on it yet, or that I'm to thick to feel the necessity
of this circumspection.
The other common point of the Fluxus scholars is to say that Fluxus is too
large to fit into an history that would choke it, leaving only a poor and
dry skeletton of this lively "movement" (generally this excuse turns
something like this: Filliou said art is what makes life more interesting
than art, Fluxus is a flux of life into art, life is too complex to be
reduced to history, so history will dry Fluxus untill it enters into the
poor molds of the history of art).
The problem is that I think it is exactly the contrary that may happen:
historical and theorical researches are ways to show the richness and the
variousness of Fluxus, because they are the best way to avoid the confinment
of Fluxus into well, to well, known boundaries: we might not be able to hold
the whole Fluxus thing into our hands, and this is good, but the more we
will know, look, search and find new things about Fluxus, the more its
amazing particuliarity will be obvious.
I have to say that
> one of the things that bothers me the most, both as an artist and as a
> scholar, is ultimately that such approaches by themselves are unable to
> either communicate the nature or joy of Fluxus type work. Fluxus is for
> me no longer only a historical subject that I am either able to, or
> even want to only objectively analyze. I have come to the realization
> that to thoroughly communicate what I find of interest or significance
> in Fluxus I can not approach it through solely traditional historical
> methods or models.
You're right, that's why I work on all the texts with an historical
charachter wrotten by the FLuxus artists...And later on by all those
scholars, critics, gallerists, collectors etc., all becoming member of the
great Fluxus Familiy. Their number is amazing amongst the Fluxus Publicus
(thanks to Simon ANderson for this denomination) and they are remarquable
because they all try to offer an other way to write history...And that's
what is interesting to me in this Fluxus adventure also: it shows some good
chances to build a new methodology in writing and producing history of art.
> Second, all who choose to continue to participate, will be become the
> Fluxlist discussion-work groups (as Patterson suggests in the score),
> or we could even divide into smaller sub groups, but I think that would
> become a bit too unwieldy. So once we are formed into our
> discussion-work group we should then (as mentioned by Patterson)
> discuss the characteristics, problems, etc. of these models.
> Then following these discussions those who are participating in our
> discussion-work group (both actively and passively - yes even the
> lurkers) should create and score a new composition in this discussed
> genre, that is Fluxus and share them with the list.
>
> OK? Shall we go for it. . . . . .
OK for me, I'll follow you.
