Brief convrsation with Hannah Higgins when she was here to do a "performance lecture" of / on her father's work. Asked her about the related controversies of Maciunas->Friedman->NewFlux and (dethrone Maciunas who was never really king anyway) -> OldGuard -> No New Fluxus! Got something like this, although this is my own take, not Hannah's, of what seemed to have happened: Maciunas in his dotage assuming right to control and designate who was who and what in Fluxus, a right or privilege he hadn't been granted by anyone else (reminiscent of Breton but w/ differences), set Ken up for a fall by designating him Crown Prince, to many OldGuard types' dismay and annoyance. Rather than dealing with Ken on the terms of his own work, there apparently has been a sort of old-New-York-Dowager attempt to just sort of snub and freeze him out of "our people" on the part of the Old Dowagers/OldFlxGuard. (I picture tiaras. "fun" parties. Finger sandwiches with real fingers.) And anyone else that is seen as "new people" are apparently regarded in the same way--interlopers trying to become part of the in group. This seems like a really silly way to be artists, but hey--takes all kinds. Although from this story it seems not everyone feels that way.
One could, to gratify the Old Guard, take the subaltern position and become fans, groupies, "Fluxites." (I kind of like the mineral air of this term . . .) Or one could could, as Bowman proposes so interestingly, just take the word for the people, demoticize it, decapitalize it, make it a common noun, and be fluxus. Makes evident the downside of having a cohesive community that has a long history of working together (doubtless a wonderful thing in itself): it can tend to make one comfey and suspicious of others who want to share that comfort. Or whom you suspect of that motive. Very like a university department in the division between tenured and adjunct faculty. Jesus Christ. Too poor for capital letters, AK On 11/25/03 8:47 AM, "Sol Nte" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "allen bukoff" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writ >> "few if any of the remaining original-Fluxus artists or official Fluxus >> Art >> Historians have much of any desire or interest to support an entirely new >> Fluxus with new people and new approaches. Perhaps I am wrong about " > > Allen, > > I think that a couple of years ago Fluxlist got hit quite hard by what you > describe and from which it never really recovered. > > It's a shame you haven't kept up all the sites and hard work you did to > establish Fluxus on the web, you were really pioneering stuff, you know. > > > cheers, > > Sol. > >
