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The Buffalo News EXHIBIT SHOWS LOCAL ROOTS OF ART MOVEMENT
Fluxus/Realization |
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WHEN: Through March 21 WHERE: Burchfield-Penney Art Center, 1300 Elmwood Ave. ADMISSION: Donation INFO: 878-6012
Not surprisingly, many art styles and new mediums
introduced during this rebellious period had the goal of upsetting the art
establishment and life in general. In this spirit of cultural revolution, where social goals
often took precedence over aesthetic ones, the art movement known as Fluxus
was born. Around the same time Fluxus was gaining momentum, Buffalo
was emerging as a major center for experimental music and literature thanks
to a handful of forward-thinking faculty members at the University at
Buffalo. Writers and composers such as Dick Higgins, Jackson Mac Low, La
Monte Young and John Cage lived in, or regularly visited, Western New York,
making it a world-renowned hub for Fluxus activity. Recent interest in the movement has seen Buffalo-based
ensembles once again staging idiosyncratic performances and events under the
Fluxus label. "Fluxus/Realization," an exhibition of Fluxus works
and related music realizations in the Burchfield-Penney Art Center, pays
tribute to the artists, writers and composers, a number of them local, who
contributed to this influential art movement. Many of the items in this display of musical notations,
graphics, text documents and related sundry materials straddle the line
between art and artifact. For instance, Earl Brown's graphic score, "4
Systems, for David Tudor on a Birthday, January 20, 1954" is a
historically important music document that also operates as a visual composition.
Looking like a tiny minimalist drawing made up of varying
lengths of black horizontal lines on white paper, it underscores the
relationship between music and visual art. Brown graphically conceptualizes
auditory sensations as a road map for musical performance. Written
instructions state that it can be played either side up and and in any tempo.
The viewer is left to imagine the performance that might result. Associating art with music is not the exclusive domain of
Fluxus artists. However, Fluxus artists often go beyond mere association.
Renowned cellist Frances-Marie Uitti, for instance, once
"performed" Robert Rauschenberg's abstract-expressionist painting
"Ace" in the Albright-Knox using the massive work as sheet music. In the current exhibition, Higgins cuts out the middleman
by creating art specifically designed for musical performance. His
"Variations on a Natural Theme for Orchestra" is a musical score
consisting of rows of music staffs superimposed by the faint image of a
person lounging in an outdoor setting. The pale brown figure, made up of many
fine horizontal lines, presumably guides the musical performance. Or maybe
the performer simply draws inspiration from the pastoral images. It doesn't
matter. Higgins' real intent is to challenge our conceptions of both music
and art. Literary works in the show also frequently take the form
of visual art. Michael Basinski's "Mata Hari Rides in on Elephants"
is an amusing arrangement of collage, text and drawing, reminiscent of
psychedelic poster art. Viewers in search of literal meaning among the
densely composed sentence fragments and mock hieroglyphics will be
disappointed. Basinski is too busy having fun. Mac Low's "A Vocabularly for Sharon Belle
Mattlin" offers a jumble of seemingly random words that can presumably
be "read" in any direction. Or you can simply appreciate the
complex patterns that materialize while you stare at it. Yoko Ono was a founder of Fluxus. Her printed verbal
score, "Map Piece 2001: Draw Imaginary Maps of your Dreams" (that's
the whole text) anticipates the conceptual art of Sol Lewitt, Jenny Holzer
and others. Other interesting works include: "The Square
Heads," a mock album cover design and raucous lampoon of indie rock's
posturing and self-aggrandizing liner notes. Higgins' poster "Some
Poetry Intermedia" graphically and poetically delineates the Fluxus
approach to performance. The decision by curator Don Metz to omit from the label
any mention of the medium of a work contributes to the impression that these
are more historical pieces than art objects. And of course, the problem with any static display of
Fluxus material is that it lacks, well -- flux. Metz addresses this by
providing a selection of experimental music CDs and a videotape of the recent
Fluxus-like Burchfield event, "24:48: A
video/performance/installation." Still, safely preserved under glass, these objects feel
incomplete. They cry out to be taken down and handled -- to be part of an
action. |
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