I didn't catch the mean message to Dick Higgins either. Like him, I have
certain people whose posts I never both with.
I wrote to Higgins about five years ago and never received anything but
warmth, encouragement, intelligence and generosity. We later kept up an
email correspondance almost weekly until he died.
To hear that there were slanderous remarks posted here only re-inforces my
growing suspicion that this list is less about Fluxus than it is about
lonely egomaniacs looking for a place to feel self-important.
dd
-Original Message-
From: Ken Friedman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Fluxlist [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: June 2, 2000 1:00 PM
Subject: FLUXLIST: Dick Higgins "His shoots shall spread out; his beauty
shall belike the olive tree ..."
It's a bit hard for me to swallow the gratuitious and
mean-spirited note recently posted here against the
late Dick Higgins.
One must wonder what causes a man to see nothing
in others but that which is small, crabbed or monstrous.
When I observe this kind of behavior, I suspect that what
he sees is little more than the projected reflection of his own
character.
I feel as George Free feels. It's nearly 35 years since I first
wrote to Dick Higgins, and I, too, was thrilled when Dick
engaged me in correspondence.
No one was ever less characterized by the notion of an
"unquestionable, overarching, prescribed agenda." Dick was
deep, thorough, systematic. He thought things through. He
changed his mind. He thought again. He welcomed others
and he welcomed debate.
Like all of us who travel about in a human body, Dick also
got irritated from time to time, and he could be peevish or
quirky. He was never mean-spirited or narrow.
Few people known to me have lived their life in such
profound spiritual or material generosity. He staked his
fortune on what he believed in. He lost much of it, and
he never complained that he was no longer rich. He was
only sad that it was hard to find a regular, paying job in
the arts along with the many art teachers and techno-geeks
who do so well. I number one specific geek in that
company.
(It does still surprise me that not one of the
several hundred universities with intermedia departments,
intermedia program and intermedia degrees had a place
for the man who theorized the concept of intermedia,
coined the word and introduced it to the world.)
Dick Higgins spent much of his life building
platforms and forums for the work of other
people, shaping networks, making introductions,
publishing books, directing the attention of critics
and curators to those whose work he admired.
This is a sharp contrast to someone whose primary
complaint seems be that the world fails to recognize
his genius -- and whose primary career goal seems
to be building ever more sites and projects to crank out his
own work.
My guess is that Saul Ostrow takes it as a great compliment
to be compared with Dick Higgins.
There are many lists where our distinguished colleague posts
from time to time. Many of these are characterized by a
back-channel network of those who send notes to each other
with astonishment, irritation and a resolute determination
neither to engage him nor to respond.
Usually, I'd let this kind of thing go, but I still miss
Dick and I am not in the mood to let such stupidity go
unchallenged.
David Ross speaks for many of us when he writes,
Yeah Brad, well when I grow up and become a real, true radical artist
like you, then maybe I can aspire to your level of accomplishment and
contribution, and brutal, uplifting honesty. Gosh, you're terrific.
Oh, I checked your on-line work...pretty spiffy. And so profound!
Anyone care to guess who among these will be remembered,
and how?
"His shoots shall spread out;
his beauty shall be like the olive tree,
and his fragrance like that of Lebanon.
They shall again live beneath my shadow,
they shall flourish as a garden;
they shall blossom like the vine,
their fragrance shall be like the wine of Lebanon."
-- Hosea 14: 6-7
-- Ken Friedman
--
