Around the time of the emergence of the neo-avant-garde, in the early 1960s, conceptual artist St... more Around the time of the emergence of the neo-avant-garde, in the early 1960s, conceptual artist Stanley Brouwn created This Way Brouwn, an apparently archival work that critically engages with matters of conservation, but with the pre-war avant-garde’s focus on the future as well. The work and its positioning in time is here discussed in the light of Jacques Derrida’s essay ”Archive Fever
Although the Fluxus art (non-)movement is often read as a historical phenomenon, the breadth of i... more Although the Fluxus art (non-)movement is often read as a historical phenomenon, the breadth of its innovations and complexities actively thwarts linear and circumscribed viewpoints. The notion of Fluxus incorporates contradiction in challenging and enduringly generative ways. More than five decades after its emergence, this special issue of OnCurating entitled Fluxus Perspectives seeks to re-examine the influence, roles, and effects of Fluxus via a wide range of scholarly perspectives. The editors Martin Patrick and Dorothee Richter asked notable writers from different locations, generations, and viewpoints, all of whom having written about Fluxus before, to offer their thoughts on its significance, particularly in relation to contemporary art. With its emphasis upon events, festivals, and exhibitions, Fluxus may also be interpreted as an important, prescient forerunner of contemporary strategies of curating. Contributions by Simon Anderson, Jordan Carter, Kevin Concannon, Ken Friedman, Natilee Harren, John Held, Jr., Hannah B Higgins, Hanna B. Hölling, Natasha Lushetich, Billie Maciunas, Peter van der Meijden, Ann Noël, Martin Patrick, Dorothee Richter, Henar Rivière, Julia Robinson, Owen F. Smith, Weronika Trojanska, and Emmett Williams.
Konsthistorisk tidskrift/Journal of Art History, 2016
SummaryTaking the difficulties involved in presenting Mail Art in a museum context as its point o... more SummaryTaking the difficulties involved in presenting Mail Art in a museum context as its point of departure, this article explores the conditions that Mail Art imposes on its own display. After a short introduction to the art form as a genre, two theoretical positions vis-a-vis Mail Art are analysed and shown to leave the matter of its communication with a secondary audience undiscussed. In order to arrive at a preliminary idea of the considerations involved, the discourse surrounding the new “relational” art of the 1990s (Nicolas Bourriaud, Claire Bishop, Jacques Ranciere) is drawn upon to explore the question of whether a Mail Art display can be seen as an illustration of a specific form of communication, as a suggestion to a secondary audience to communicate differently or as a model of communication. Each step is accompanied by an analysis of one or more works: Ken Friedman’s Omaha Flow Systems (1973), Niels Lomholt and Tom Elling’s Mr. Klein-project (1978–1981), Rod Summers’ VEC Secret Exchange and ...
When museums are mentioned in connection with art that as a critical strategy generates primary b... more When museums are mentioned in connection with art that as a critical strategy generates primary bodily experience, it is usually to claim that they are incompatible. However, both museums and artists have developed new strategies to deal with the changing times. This article seeks to re-evaluate the claim that museums will always treat works as objects by comparing Fluxus works and their staging by Fluxus organiser George Maciunas to examples of newer work that seeks a similar kind of interaction with the viewer. The solution they suggest is documentation of the way a primary audience interacted with the work in order to make it available to the (secondary) museum audience. Current models of museum viewing tend to be oriented towards experience or data retrieval. The alternative, it is argued, is a museum that draws attention to the historicity, specificity and authoredness of the viewing situation. A museum that no longer distinguishes between artwork and mise-en-scène, but wants t...
Around the time of the emergence of the neo-avant-garde, in the early 1960s, conceptual artist St... more Around the time of the emergence of the neo-avant-garde, in the early 1960s, conceptual artist Stanley Brouwn created This Way Brouwn, an apparently archival work that critically engages with matters of conservation, but with the pre-war avant-garde’s focus on the future as well. The work and its positioning in time is here discussed in the light of Jacques Derrida’s essay ”Archive Fever
Although the Fluxus art (non-)movement is often read as a historical phenomenon, the breadth of i... more Although the Fluxus art (non-)movement is often read as a historical phenomenon, the breadth of its innovations and complexities actively thwarts linear and circumscribed viewpoints. The notion of Fluxus incorporates contradiction in challenging and enduringly generative ways. More than five decades after its emergence, this special issue of OnCurating entitled Fluxus Perspectives seeks to re-examine the influence, roles, and effects of Fluxus via a wide range of scholarly perspectives. The editors Martin Patrick and Dorothee Richter asked notable writers from different locations, generations, and viewpoints, all of whom having written about Fluxus before, to offer their thoughts on its significance, particularly in relation to contemporary art. With its emphasis upon events, festivals, and exhibitions, Fluxus may also be interpreted as an important, prescient forerunner of contemporary strategies of curating. Contributions by Simon Anderson, Jordan Carter, Kevin Concannon, Ken Friedman, Natilee Harren, John Held, Jr., Hannah B Higgins, Hanna B. Hölling, Natasha Lushetich, Billie Maciunas, Peter van der Meijden, Ann Noël, Martin Patrick, Dorothee Richter, Henar Rivière, Julia Robinson, Owen F. Smith, Weronika Trojanska, and Emmett Williams.
Konsthistorisk tidskrift/Journal of Art History, 2016
SummaryTaking the difficulties involved in presenting Mail Art in a museum context as its point o... more SummaryTaking the difficulties involved in presenting Mail Art in a museum context as its point of departure, this article explores the conditions that Mail Art imposes on its own display. After a short introduction to the art form as a genre, two theoretical positions vis-a-vis Mail Art are analysed and shown to leave the matter of its communication with a secondary audience undiscussed. In order to arrive at a preliminary idea of the considerations involved, the discourse surrounding the new “relational” art of the 1990s (Nicolas Bourriaud, Claire Bishop, Jacques Ranciere) is drawn upon to explore the question of whether a Mail Art display can be seen as an illustration of a specific form of communication, as a suggestion to a secondary audience to communicate differently or as a model of communication. Each step is accompanied by an analysis of one or more works: Ken Friedman’s Omaha Flow Systems (1973), Niels Lomholt and Tom Elling’s Mr. Klein-project (1978–1981), Rod Summers’ VEC Secret Exchange and ...
When museums are mentioned in connection with art that as a critical strategy generates primary b... more When museums are mentioned in connection with art that as a critical strategy generates primary bodily experience, it is usually to claim that they are incompatible. However, both museums and artists have developed new strategies to deal with the changing times. This article seeks to re-evaluate the claim that museums will always treat works as objects by comparing Fluxus works and their staging by Fluxus organiser George Maciunas to examples of newer work that seeks a similar kind of interaction with the viewer. The solution they suggest is documentation of the way a primary audience interacted with the work in order to make it available to the (secondary) museum audience. Current models of museum viewing tend to be oriented towards experience or data retrieval. The alternative, it is argued, is a museum that draws attention to the historicity, specificity and authoredness of the viewing situation. A museum that no longer distinguishes between artwork and mise-en-scène, but wants t...
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