Fluxus was a group of international artists, poets, and musicians who wanted to integrate life into art by using everyday events, sounds, and materials to create social and economic change in the art world. George Maciunas, the founder of Fluxus, created the name, which means "flow" and "effluent." From 1962 to 1966, Fluxus combined conceptual art, minimalism, new music, poetry, and chance-based work. It was more of an attitude toward art than a distinct style. Using humor and everyday materials, Fluxus made surprising objects and events. All Fluxus production was driven by a utilitarian philosophy.

When and where did Fluxus begin?

Fluxus, an international group of artists, poets, and musicians, began in the early 1960s. The movement officially started during a European tour from 1962 to 1963 called "Festum Fluxorum." This is when its international character was confirmed. The name Fluxus, suggesting both "flow" and "effluent," was coined by founder George Maciunas. Fluxus fused conceptual art, minimalism, new music, poetry, and chance-based work into an intermedia phenomenon. The group utilized humor and everyday materials to create surprising objects and events.

Who were some important artists involved in Fluxus?

Fluxus, an international group of artists, poets, and musicians, aimed to integrate life into art to bring about social and economic change in the art world. Key figures associated with Fluxus include: * George Maciunas, the Lithuanian American designer who founded Fluxus * Dick Higgins, an American artist * Alison Knowles, an American artist * Ben Vautrier, a French artist * Nam June Paik, a Korean artist * Wolf Vostell, a German artist * Yoko Ono, who was associated with the Fluxus collective

What kinds of materials and methods did Fluxus artists use?

Fluxus artists aimed to integrate life into art by using found objects, sounds, and events to instigate social and economic change within the art world. In its early years (1962-1966), Fluxus combined conceptual art, minimalism, new music, poetry, and chance-based work, showing its irreverent attitude through humor and everyday materials. Driven by a utilitarian philosophy, color, scale, material, and font were secondary to affordability and available space. Artists collaborated with George Maciunas, who interpreted their ideas into multiple forms, such as chess sets or aprons. These items were deliberately ephemeral, inexpensive, and intended for use rather than display.

How did Fluxus challenge traditional ideas of art?

Fluxus, emerging in the 1960s, was an international group of artists, poets, and musicians who challenged traditional ideas of art by integrating life into art through found events, sounds, and materials. This avant-garde movement, influenced by Dada, questioned the separation of art from social and political life. Breaking from traditional artistic techniques, Fluxus embraced humour, everyday materials, and chance-based work, creating surprising objects and events. Artists from various disciplines collaborated, producing provocative gestures that defied established norms and questioned the dominance of national styles in art.

What impact did Fluxus have on later art movements?

Fluxus, an international group of artists, aimed to integrate life into art using found events, sounds, and materials to instigate social and economic change. Emerging between 1962 and 1966, Fluxus combined conceptual art, minimalism, new music, and poetry, marking it more by its irreverent attitude than a distinct style. Fluxus's interdisciplinary ethos saw musicians, poets, and painters collaborating, influencing later conceptually oriented artists. Its happenings were precursors to performance art, video art and other progressive art forms. Performance art has origins in the early 20th century avant-garde, including Futurism and Dada.

Fluxus

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Several members of the Bandaged Orchestra sit wrapped in bandages, some wearing sunglasses, during the Fluxus Festival arranged by Yoko Ono at Carnegie Recital Hall in 1965.

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Related Artists:: Yoko Ono; Nam June Paik

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Fluxus

art

Written by

Lisa S. Wainwright

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Britannica Editors

History

Top Questions

What is Fluxus art?
Fluxus was a group of international artists, poets, and musicians who wanted to integrate life into art by using everyday events, sounds, and materials to create social and economic change in the art world. George Maciunas, the founder of Fluxus, created the name, which means "flow" and "effluent." From 1962 to 1966, Fluxus combined conceptual art, minimalism, new music, poetry, and chance-based work. It was more of an attitude toward art than a distinct style. Using humor and everyday materials, Fluxus made surprising objects and events. All Fluxus production was driven by a utilitarian philosophy.
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1. Definition of Fluxus
2. Fluxus
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When and where did Fluxus begin?
Fluxus, an international group of artists, poets, and musicians, began in the early 1960s. The movement officially started during a European tour from 1962 to 1963 called "Festum Fluxorum." This is when its international character was confirmed.

The name Fluxus, suggesting both "flow" and "effluent," was coined by founder George Maciunas. Fluxus fused conceptual art, minimalism, new music, poetry, and chance-based work into an intermedia phenomenon. The group utilized humor and everyday materials to create surprising objects and events.
2 Britannica Sources
1. Fluxus
2. Western painting: Institutional critique, feminism, and conceptual art: 1968 and its aftermath
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
Who were some important artists involved in Fluxus?
Fluxus, an international group of artists, poets, and musicians, aimed to integrate life into art to bring about social and economic change in the art world.

Key figures associated with Fluxus include:
* George Maciunas, the Lithuanian American designer who founded Fluxus
* Dick Higgins, an American artist
* Alison Knowles, an American artist
* Ben Vautrier, a French artist
* Nam June Paik, a Korean artist
* Wolf Vostell, a German artist
* Yoko Ono, who was associated with the Fluxus collective
3 Britannica Sources
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
What kinds of materials and methods did Fluxus artists use?
Fluxus artists aimed to integrate life into art by using found objects, sounds, and events to instigate social and economic change within the art world. In its early years (1962-1966), Fluxus combined conceptual art, minimalism, new music, poetry, and chance-based work, showing its irreverent attitude through humor and everyday materials.

Driven by a utilitarian philosophy, color, scale, material, and font were secondary to affordability and available space. Artists collaborated with George Maciunas, who interpreted their ideas into multiple forms, such as chess sets or aprons. These items were deliberately ephemeral, inexpensive, and intended for use rather than display.
2 Britannica Sources
1. Fluxus
2. Western painting: Institutional critique, feminism, and conceptual art: 1968 and its aftermath
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
How did Fluxus challenge traditional ideas of art?
Fluxus, emerging in the 1960s, was an international group of artists, poets, and musicians who challenged traditional ideas of art by integrating life into art through found events, sounds, and materials. This avant-garde movement, influenced by Dada, questioned the separation of art from social and political life.

Breaking from traditional artistic techniques, Fluxus embraced humour, everyday materials, and chance-based work, creating surprising objects and events. Artists from various disciplines collaborated, producing provocative gestures that defied established norms and questioned the dominance of national styles in art.
3 Britannica Sources
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
What impact did Fluxus have on later art movements?
Fluxus, an international group of artists, aimed to integrate life into art using found events, sounds, and materials to instigate social and economic change. Emerging between 1962 and 1966, Fluxus combined conceptual art, minimalism, new music, and poetry, marking it more by its irreverent attitude than a distinct style.

Fluxus's interdisciplinary ethos saw musicians, poets, and painters collaborating, influencing later conceptually oriented artists. Its happenings were precursors to performance art, video art and other progressive art forms. Performance art has origins in the early 20th century avant-garde, including Futurism and Dada.
3 Britannica Sources
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.

Fluxus, a loose international group of artists, poets, and musicians whose only shared impulse was to integrate life into art through the use of found events, sounds, and materials, thereby bringing about social and economic change in the art world. More than 50 artists were associated with Fluxus, many producing a periodical anthologizing the latest experiments across the world in art and antiart, music and antimusic, and poetry and antipoetry and many taking part for the sheer collaboration opportunities and the built-in audience. Fluxus involved artists from around the world, including the Americans Dick Higgins and Alison Knowles, the Frenchman Ben Vautrier, the Korean artist Nam June Paik, and the German artist Wolf Vostell.

The name Fluxus, meant to suggest both “flow” and “effluent,” was coined by Fluxus founder George Maciunas (1931–78), a Lithuanian American designer and “cultural entrepreneur.” Maciunas used the word fluxus to describe a wide range of his activities, from a published call for a common front of artists against culture to a New York artists’ housing association, as well as a publishing concern that produced ephemeral interactive multiples and staged live events called Happenings that were precursors to performance art, video art, and other progressive art forms.

In its early years, from 1962 to 1966, Fluxus fused conceptual art, minimalism, new music, poetry, and chance-based work into an intermedia phenomenon, identifiable more through its irreverent attitude toward art than through the use of any distinct style. Utilizing humour—in the spirit of Dada—and everyday materials and experiences, Fluxus created original and often surprising objects and events. The Fluxus event, sometimes a minimal live gesture initially presented as part of a concert or a poetry reading, was researched and developed in part from ideas collected by the American experimental musician La Monte Young and published by him and the American poet and playwright Jackson Mac Low as An Anthology of Chance Operations… in 1963. This publication—which collected “chance operations, concept art, anti-art, indeterminacy, plans of action, diagrams, music, dance constructions, improvisation, meaningless work, natural disasters, compositions, mathematics, essays, [and] poetry”—was designed by Maciunas and formed much of the material for his “Festum Fluxorum,” a European tour of 1962–63 during which Fluxus became an official movement and its international character was confirmed.

From 1964 Maciunas designed, produced, and promoted hundreds of multiples: a remarkable range of objects from tiny books of compositions to uniquely altered attaché cases with compartments full of games in small plastic boxes, plus films, records, jokes, miniature environments, posters, and charts using imagery publicly available from the New York Public Library. All Fluxus production was driven by a utilitarian philosophy in which colour, scale, material, and font were secondary to affordability and available space—a format that brought coherence to the otherwise heterogeneous Fluxus style. More than 30 individuals, from Christo to Yoko Ono, collaborated with Maciunas, who interpreted their ideas, whether for a chess set or for an apron, into multiple forms. Produced on demand by hand, using volunteer labour and the cheapest material, these provocative and amusing items were deliberately ephemeral, inexpensive, and intended for use rather than display.

Lisa S. Wainwright

Fluxus

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