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First-ever exhibition at the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi
TAKE a sheet of paper. Shake it, rumple it and tear it. Place the act in the context of creative art, installations, short texts and theatre. You get a free-flowing genre of inter-disciplinary art called ‘Fluxus’ art. An exhibition on the art started in New Delhi recently and would be on till first week of June. For Indians, bred on conventional art formats like paintings, sculptures and installations, fluxus may seem a tad difficult to understand. Experts describe it as a spiritual experience which recontextualises traditional forms. "It is an intra-media discipline, which makes new sense of conventional meanings. The form fuses visuals, music, technology and performance arts into one creative enterprise," said Rajeev Lochan, director of the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA). The NGMA has put on the first-ever exhibition of fluxus compositions from Germany. This unique art form developed in the US and Europe in the early 1960s largely as a recoil to the horrors of the two world wars. In Europe, the art form flourished in nations that took part in the world wars. In the US, it began as an experiment by composer John Cage, who was exploring artistic frontiers beyond music in his compositions such as 4'33". The ripples of the fluxus movement were also felt in faraway Japan. Fluxus (the Latin for ‘flow’) art speaks of liberation from the textbook confines of artistic expressions and comments on a gamut of issues, which are at times anti-establishment but tinged with humour and irony. Fluxus - in a free interpretation based on Lewis Carroll - means a long story with many knots. The roots of the fluxus movement are to be found in the experimental directions of art in the early 20th century. Fluxus artists such as Joseph Beuys, John Cage, Robert Filliou, Nam June Paik, Gerhard Ruhm, Daniel Spoerri, and Wolf Vostell, among others have worked on and with forms of art, which transcend the existing categories of art, ranging from music or language, fine arts or dance. Since then many art forms have emerged out of the fluxus movement - video and media art as well as performance art. The official beginning of the fluxus movement, involving a group of artists from all domains of art, can be traced to the fluxus festival in Weisbaden in Germany in 1962. It was pioneered by Lithuania-born artist George Maciunas. American fluxus artist and musician Ben Patterson said, "Fluxus draws heavily from music and visual arts," at a gathering at the NGMA. The artist is one of the early fluxus pioneers, who was part of the group that George Maciunas had cobbled together for the Weisbaden show. Fluxus arts thrive on the fluxus boxes, rectangular cardboard or plastic boxes that contain the fluxus kit, nametags and simple instructions like "steep a piano in the water of a pool, play some music of F. Liszt on the piano (an instruction conceived by Japanese artist Cheiko Shiomi in 1963)". The boxes themselves are works of creative assemblage art. "One of the most popular promoter of fluxus art was Beatles sensation (late) John Lenno’s wife Yoko Ono. She used to organise fluxus concerts in the loft at her home that drew several leading fluxus artists including pioneer George Maciunas. Some of John’s music has also been incorporated into fluxus compositions," said art historian Peter Kloser, who was also present at the NGMA. — IANS
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