Fluxus as Network

Fluxus: legendary, important, but somehow far away? Fluxus protagonists will meet at HKW and report on the radical punch of the artistic network between East and West that overcame the Iron Curtain. This international cultural phenomenon required a common artistic language. The inspiration for this was Dada, as well as the work of Marcel Duchamp and John Cage. New York was a starting point and important node in this network, which extended across Germany's Rhineland, West Berlin, Prague, Poland, Scandinavia, and the Soviet Union to Japan. It was the 1960s and 1970s: The time was ripe for an "intermedial" art transcending traditional genres, for a seamless joining of art with life, for a counter-movement to Abstract Expressionism. The strength of Fluxus right up to today is evidenced in this summit meeting of Fluxus artists, who will meet at HKW with their colleagues from related collaborative projects in Eastern Europe, and with experts and young artists. The conference is part of a network of events, which has partner institutions in Berlin and includes exhibitions, lectures and performances.

Fluxus as Network

Jaroslaw Kozlowski (concept artist, Poznań, co-organiser of 1977 Fluxus festival in Poland): "NET/SIEC and Fluxus". Astrit Schmidt-Burkhard (image historian, Salzburg): Maciunas' Diagrammatic Networks. Thomas Kellein (art scholar / director of Kunsthalle Bielefeld): "George Maciunas and the Fluxus Artists: Authoritarian Compulsion and Grotesque Humour"