Dear Eric,
You're right in saying that the first appearance of the term Fluxus was for
that lithuanian magazine, but saying that Maciunas had a very little insight
into the experimental art scene is a bit strong. He organized the Musica
Antica e Nova, with people like La Monte, Cage, Corner, Dick Higgins etc.,
he had already met Yoko Ono, and even if those concerts was far from having
the intensity of the coming Fulxus concerts, they're in a range of matter
quite related to them (not to speak of the -too- famous An Anthology he had
worked on). About the use of the term Fluxus, I also remind you the card he
did for the vernissage of the Galerie L�gitime of R. Filliou (exhibiting
works of Ben Patterson), which is signed "SNEAK PREVIEW Fluxus...". It was
the 3/7/62, and those artists were to become Fluxus people.
Anyway I don't agree with the Sivermann's point of view about Fluxus focused
on Maciunas, and it's obvious that Fluxus was a trend amongst alot of
similar researchs (Gutai, Letterism, Situationism, Neo-Dadaists, some of the
Nouveau Realistes etc.), but Maciunas was the catalytisator of what became
Fluxus.
I've never had the chance to meet La Monte nor Mac Low, but I've read the
article where Mac Low relates how Maciunas met NY avant-garde, giving
himself the big role into it. And I also remember that Mac Low resigned of
Fluxus after the Fluxus Policy Newsletter n�6.
About the simplifications of first Maciunas writtings, not one of us could
find them interesting, you say, but some ones of Fluxus did, because if not,
Fluxus would'nt have exist. They're maybe dated, raw rhetoric, but they were
efficient in their time and sufficient in their aim: to rise a collective
feeling amongst a bunch of young artists who didn't know exactly what to do
with their lonely, but complex and brilliant, reflexions, theories and
pratices. Moreover, Maciunas had the ability, not only to agregate people
that already knew each other, but also artists unknown of the others, that
he had linked to his vision of Fluxus.
Bertrand Clavez
