Fluxjob

Fluxjob: Purging the World of Bourgeoisie Sickness Since 1963
February 7 – July 6, 2014
MCBA Main Gallery


In the 1960s, George Maciunas urged a small group of artists to purge the world of bourgeois sickness and dead art. The result was Fluxus, a non-movement that expanded the definitions of what art can be. Fluxjob is an exploration of contemporary artists who continue to create interdisciplinary anti-art that is ephemeral, inexpensive, and interactive.

The exhibition is co-curated by MCBA Executive Director Jeff Rathermel and noted Fluxus artist, publisher and performer Keith Buchholz. Fluxjob features the work of over 100 artists, anti-artists, performers, anti-performers, and collaborative (and anti-collaborative) groups.

View a sampling of images from this exhibition. Refresh the page for another sampling, or visit MCBA on Flickr to view the full album.

 

Featured artists:

Harold Abramowitz and Amanda Ackerman / SAM OR SAMANTHA YAMS (South Pasadena, CA); Reed Altemus (Portland, ME); Lynda Angelis (Minneapolis, MN); Antic-Ham (Hyemee Kim) (Seoul, South Korea / Achill Island, Ireland); Daniel Balanescu (Oxford, UK); Tiziana Baracchi (Venice, Italy); Ruth Bardenstein (Ann Arbor, MI); Diana Behl (Brookings, SD); Joan Bemel Iron Moccasin (Columbus, MN); C. Mehrl Bennett (Columbus, OH); John M. Bennett (Columbus, OH); Mary Bergs (Minneapolis. MN); Scott Blake (Omaha, NE); Mark Bloch (New York, NY); Bread and Puppet Theater Cheap Art Bus (New York, NY); Mitsuko Brooks (Brooklyn, NY); Keith Buchholz (St. Louis, MO); Allen Bukoff / Fluxus Midwest (Birmingham, MI); Milanka Bunard (Vancouver, BC, Canada); Anyelmaidelin Calzadilla Fernández (Havana, Cuba); Mary Campbell (Staten Island, NY); Joe Cardella (Ventura, CA); Elizabeth Carls (Minneapolis, MN); Sherylynne Carriveau; Tom Cassidy (Minneapolis, MN); Constellation Lab (Catherine Davis, Jennifer Reifsneider, Nancy Voegeli-Curran and Matthew Winkler) (Rochester, MN); Pál Csaba (Budapest, Hungary); Maria Darmeli Araujo (Porto Alegre, Brazil); Christopher Davenport (Tuscaloosa, AL); Daniel DeCulla (Burgos, Spain); Bryan Deese (Nashville, TN); David Dellafiora / Field Study International (Victoria, Australia); Tim Devin (Somerville MA); K.S. Ernst (Blairstown, NJ); William Evertson (East Hampton, CT); Erik Farseth (Minneapolis, MN); Luc Fierens (Weerde, Belgium); Bron Fionnachd-Féin / PringaDa (Tasmania, Australia); Scott Fisk (Birmingham, AL); Chris Flash (New York, NY); Dale Flattum (Minneapolis, MN); Philip Franklin; Carol Freid (Georgetown, KY); Picasso Gaglione (Chicago, IL); Carolee Gilligan Wheeler (San Francisco, CA); Marco Giovenale (Rome, Italy); Hazel Grainger (Bristol, UK); The Guerrilla Girls; Karen Hanmer (Glenview, IL); Shirley Sue Hathaway (Schaumburg, IL); Henriette Heise (Copenhagen, Denmark); L. Scott Helmes (St. Paul, MN); Jean Hess (Knoxville, TN); Jennie Hinchcliff / Fog City Fluxus (San Francisco, CA); Jessica Hoffman (Seattle, WA); Sam Hoolihan (Minneapolis, MN); Jade Hoyer (Knoxville, TN); Peter Huttinger (Cincinnati, OH); IAMSOMEGUY (San Francisco, CA); Colter Jacobson (San Francisco, CA); Edwin Jager (Oshkosh, WI); Justin Jorgensen (Los Angeles, CA); Robin Kahn (New York, NY); Allen Kornblum / Toothpaste Press (Minneapolis, MN); Richard Kostelanetz (Ridgewood, NY); Peter Kuper (New York, NY); Hilke Kurzke (Nottingham, UK); Jean Kusina (Lambertville, MI); Tanja Lažetić (Ljubljana, Slovenia); Julie Leonard (Iowa City, IA); Moan Lisa (Des Moines, IA); Carron Little (Chicago, IL); Ginny Lloyd (Jupiter, FL); Becca Lofchie (Los Angeles, CA); David Luke (Minneapolis, MN); Toby Lurie (Fort Bragg, CA); Erick Lyle (San Francisco, CA); Presley Martin (Minneapolis, MN); Irma Martinez Sizer (Lubbock, TX); Scott McCarney (Rochester NY); Melissa McCarthy (Toronto, ON, Canada); Lee Merideth; Sonja Benskin Mesher (Gwynedd, Wales, UK); Virginia Milici (Treviso, Italy); Cathryn Miller (Grasswood, SK, Canada); Bea Nettles (Urbana,IL); Yoko Ono (New York, NY); Nate Orton (Portland, OR); Bibiana Padilla Maltos (Westminster, CA); Caroline Paquita (Brooklyn, NY); Svetlana Pesetskaya (Rostov Region, Russia); James Prez (Brooklyn, NY); Robin Price (Middletown, CN); Ptrzia (TICTAC) (Starnberg, Germany); James Reid-Cunningham (Cambridge, MA); Allan Revich (Toronto, ON, Canada); Angelo Ricciardi (Torre Annunziata, Italy); Julia Helen Rice (Minneapolis, MN); Rose Rigley (Queensland, Australia); Barbara Rosenthal (New York, NY); Christopher Saclolo (Chicago, IL); Andreas Schmidt (London, UK); David Shrigley (Glasgow, Scotland); Susan Shulman (Montreal, Quebec, Canada); Claire Siepser (West Chester, PA); Tom Spence (St. Paul, MN); David Stairs (Mt. Pleasant, MI); Holly Streekstra (Minneapolis, MN); Melody Sumner Carnahan (Santa Fe, NM); Michael Sumner (Santa Fe, NM); Xara Thustra (Los Angeles, CA); Jill V. Trescott (Randolph, MN); Eden Ünlüata (Chicago, IL); Francis Van Maele / Redfoxpress (Achill Island, Ireland); Ed Varney (Courtenay, BC, Canada); Nico Vassilakis (The Bronx, NY); Suzanne Vilmain (Santa Fe, NM); Nick Vlcek (Chanhassen, MN); Caitlin R Warner (Minneapolis, MN); Jennifer Weigel (Affton, MO); Lawrence Weiner (New York, NY); World Book Night Group (Bristol, UK).

The exhibition also includes Prepared Box for John Cage, with contributions by Robert Rauschenberg, Anne d’Harnoncourt, Claes Oldenburg, Laurie Anderson, Geoff Hendricks, Carolee Schneemann, Allan Kaprow, Robert Morris, George Brecht, Yoko Ono, Ray Johnson, Alison Knowles, Joseph Beuys, Nam June Paik and many others.

Coordinated events:

Duchamp Sucks: An Evening of Fluxus Performances

Saturday, March 15; 7–9pm
MCBA gallery and studios

Join us for a unique event featuring local and national performance artists who are living and loving the non-art reality dream. Experience recreations of classic Fluxus performances as well as contemporary scores. The event will take place throughout the space, throughout the evening, with intermissions built-in so you can also tour the gallery exhibitions, experience a sound installation by multimedia artist Eric Lunde, and refuel with refreshments. Participants include experimental poet John Bennett, performance artist C. Mehrl Bennett, composer Darren Brown, stand-up word roller Tom Cassidy, performance and mixed-media artist Jennifer Weigel, Be Blank Consort collaborators Kathy Ernst and Scott Helmes, Fluxjob co-curators Keith Buchholz and Jeff Rathermel, and others both tangible and virtual. Duchamp Sucks also celebrates the opening of coordinated exhibitions Scored and Fluxbox, both on display in the Open Book Lobby Gallery.

Fluxus Ruckus All Ages Open House

Saturday, April 19; 10am–4pm
MCBA gallery and studios

 
fluxusruckus-photobooth

All are welcome to this day of fun and exploration. Help re-create classic Fluxus performances, view book art demonstrations, and make cool stuff through a variety of hands-on activities — including rubber stamping, book binding, and letterpress printing.

 
fluxaroids-lunde

(Top: paparazzi photo booth by Jes Lee; bottom: Fluxaroids by Eric Lunde)

1978

Presented in coordination with Northern Spark
Saturday, June 14 through Sunday, June 15; 9:00pm – 5:30am
MCBA gallery and studios, and Open Book lobby

Once again MCBA brings artmaking excitement to Northern Spark! Join us for 1978 — a true Happening filled with mirror balls, disco music, hands-on screen printing, blacklight paper marbling, and letterpress printing! Pull an Andy Warhol-inspired screen print with Aesthetic Apparatus, experiment with glow-in-the-dark paints in the marbling studio with Suzanne Hughes, and print a cover for MCBA’s Northern Spark Zine – a Fluxus-inspired publication conceived in collaboration with Monica Edwards Larson of Sister Black Press. At 3am, come unhinged — pick a screen, make a stencil, pick a color… screens will come loose and paper will be flying for a free-form, large scale, print-o-rama!

Coordinated exhibitions:

Cage

January 17 – March 9, 2014
Open Book Lobby Gallery

The beautiful and unique scores of John Cage are presented in this special exhibition that highlights the critical role of musicians and composers in the early development of Fluxus and the enduring value of performance in contemporary art. John Cage (1912–1992) was a pioneer of indeterminacy in music and a leading figure of the post-war avant-garde. Critics have lauded him as one of the most influential American composers of the 20th century. The son of an inventor, Cage spent time in Europe as a young man, absorbing culture and studying with Arnold Schoenberg. He returned to the United States in the 1930s and began composing works for percussion ensembles.

Cage self-defined his career as “an exploration of non-intention” and relentlessly pushed the boundaries of music by injecting randomness and chance operations into his compositions. Many of his pieces were in fact “happenings,” an art form established by Cage and his students in the late 1950s. At that time, Cage taught a series of experimental composition classes at the New School for Social Research in New York. These were attended by such artists as LaMonte Young, Allan Kaprow, George Brecht, Dick Higgins and George Maciunas. Many of Cage’s students were later champions of Fluxus, an international network of artists, composers and designers known for blending different artistic media and disciplines. Like Cage, the artists of Fluxus were inspired by serendipity, performance, and the integration of art with everyday life. Fluxjob pays tribute to Cage’s influence on the avant-garde by featuring contemporary artists who continue to create interdisciplinary anti-art that is ephemeral, indeterminate and interactive.

Scored

March 14 – July 27, 2014
Open Book Lobby Gallery

The international network of Fluxus artists, composers and designers were known for blending different artistic media and disciplines and were inspired by serendipity, humor and the integration of art with daily actions. In addition to creating physical work, Fluxus artists embraced performance-based expression. Today, contemporary artists continue to stage concerts and compose event scores involving familiar actions, everyday objects and simple concepts.

Scored features a wide variety of both classic and contemporary Fluxus scores. The events can be performed by anyone at any time in any place. The goal is to highlight and explore the possibilities of significance in what is usually deemed insignificant. Grapefruit, Yoko Ono’s 1964 compilation of event scores, is one of the most popular and best known examples of Fluxus art.

Fluxbox

March 14 – July 27, 2014
Open Book Lobby Gallery

Box assemblages have been a mainstay of Fluxus art for over fifty years. These intimate “museums” are grounded in traditions and methods first established by earlier artists such as Marcel Duchamp and Joseph Cornell. Like the scores presented on the adjacent wall, box assemblages are not complete without interaction. They become art only when they are explored and experienced by a viewer. A selection of works from the exhibition Fluxbox are presented in these cases. This collection of boxes, packages, and games was curated by Keith Buchholz and debuted at Chicago’s Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection Gallery, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, during Fluxfest 2014. As a group, they demonstrate a variety of Fluxus themes associated with chance encounters, ephemerality, humor and the integration of art with everyday life.

50 Years / 50 Objects

April 11 – August 10, 2014
Open Book Cowles Literary Commons

Performer and visual artist Tom Cassidy exhibits 50 objects plucked from his vast collection of books, oddities, ephemera and what-nots. See history through the eyes of someone dedicated to the elimination of fine art through occasional action.