Fluxus at Harvard
It is rare for a museum to get an acquisition as a partial gift that is not
from a trustee or longtime benefactor, but rather from collectors who have
no previous ties to an institution. Such is the case with a group of works
that have recently been added to the collection of the Harvard University
Art Museums. Included in the group are examples by Christo, Claes Oldenburg,
Yoko Ono and George Brecht, who were all part of Fluxus, an international
collective of young artists, writers and musicians in the early 1960's. The
works were collected by two New Yorkers: Peter Moore, a photographer who
died in 1993 and was known for recording Fluxus activities, and his wife,
Barbara, an art historian, writer and former rare-book dealer.
Part gift, part purchase, the collection includes 121 works, many of them
editions and multiples dating from the early 60's through the late 70's.
While nobody at Harvard would say what the collection is worth, experts in
the field say its value is around $2 million.
This was engineered by Jerry Cohn, the former head of prints, said Thomas
Lentz, director of the Harvard Art Museums. It's part of our initiative for
Harvard to move more forcefully into the realm of modern and contemporary
art.
Since much of the Fluxus aesthetic involved the viewer's participation, the
collection goes right to the heart of the Harvard museums' mission: to
provide students and scholars close interaction with art.
Besides examples by well-known artists like Mr. Oldenburg and Christo, there
are also 20 works by George Maciunas, the Lithuanian-born artist who died in
1978. He gave the movement its name and organized and promoted many of its
efforts.
The acquisition complements the Willy and Charlotte Reber Collection of
works by Joseph Beuys, which is at the Busch-Reisinger Museum at Harvard.
The Moore Collection will go into another Harvard museum, the Fogg Art
Museum.
