From: "bild-denken" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Macinas' Learning Machines Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2003 19:25:07 +0200 X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 X-Loop-Detect: 1
Please find [below] the announcement the exhibition: Maciunas' Learning Machines. From Art History to a Chronology of Fluxus.
With compliments
Astrit Schmidt-Burkhardt
AstritSCHMIDT-BURKHARDT Linzergasse 8 A-5020 Salzburg T ++43/662/884441 E <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Maciunas' Learning Machines
From Art History to a Chronology of Fluxus
Opening Reception / Wednesday October 30, 2003 / 6-9 p.m. / Performance Marietheres Finkeldei
KUNSTBIBLIOTHEK SMPK / MATTHÄIKIRCHPLATZ 6 / 10785 BERLIN
EXHIBITION / OCTOBER 31, TO JANUARY 11, 2004 /
Mon 2-8 p.m. / Tue-Fri 10 a.m.-8 p.m.
The art of networked thought involves simplifying complexity and creating openings for new ideas. This way of thinking, which remains constant in all spheres of knowledge, also defines artistic practice. The focal point of this exhibition revolves around three dozen diagrams of history, designed by the Fluxus initiator George Maciunas, between 1953 and 1973, as a visualization of chronological causality. If everything developed according to Maciunas' theory, there would not be any real understanding of the evolution of art without charts. His graphic work, a third of which is being presented to the public for the first time, attempts in various ways to draw a picture of history which is assembled using dates and facts, lines and vectors. The result appears to be scientific and is at the same time artistically fascinating. It not only provides insight into formerly unknown relationships between dates and historical events; entirely new kinds of knowledge transfer are also produced. The diagram as a system of order helps us in our contemplation and explanation of the past. A network of tightly interwoven political, cultural-historical, economic, poetic, and aesthetic elements produces a wealth of manifold associations and allusions. Maciunas' charts can be read like a cultural timetable, which also outlines the conditions of the Fluxus movement. His universal history serves as a model for the Fluxus chronology which then itself calls for universal significance. On the basis of Maciunas' maps, it is possible to come up with a clear definition of those who belong to the hard core of Fluxus and those who are seen to be excluded members. The visual display thus takes on the characteristics of a show trial. In this way, the writing of history and pictorial politics is questioned anew.
A catalogue has been published for the exhibition by Vice Versa, Berlin. Ca. 64 pages with 60 b/w illustrations, mostly full-page, and 2 posters. Hard cover, 30.3 x 24 cm, ISBN 3-932809-39-4, € 19.61.
curator: Astrit Schmidt-Burkhardt [EMAIL PROTECTED]
