George Maciunas (; ; November 8, 1931

Kaunas Kaunas (; ) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius, the fourth largest List of cities in the Baltic states by population, city in the Baltic States and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaun ...

– May 9, 1978

Boston, Massachusetts Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

) was a

Lithuanian American Lithuanian Americans refer to American citizens and residents of Lithuanian descent or were born in Lithuania. New Philadelphia, Pennsylvania has the largest percentage of Lithuanian Americans (20.8%) in its population in the United States. ...

artist, art historian, and art organizer who was the founding member and central coordinator of

Fluxus Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers, and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental performance art, art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finishe ...

, an international community of artists, architects, composers, and designers. He is most famous for organizing and performing in early Fluxus

Happening A happening is a performance, event, or situation art, usually as performance art. The term was first used by Allan Kaprow in 1959 to describe a range of art-related events. History Origins Allan Kaprow first coined the term "happening" i ...

s and Festivals, for his Fluxus

graphic art A category of fine art, graphic art covers a broad range of visual artistic expression, typically two-dimensional graphics, i.e. produced on a flat surface,artists' multiples.

Early life

His father, Alexander M. Maciunas, was a Lithuanian architect and engineer who had trained in Berlin, and his mother, Leokadija, was a Russian-born dancer from

Tiflis Tbilisi ( ; ka, თბილისი, ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( ), ( ka, ტფილისი, tr ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Georgia (country), largest city of Georgia ( ...

affiliated with the Lithuanian National Opera Mr. Fluxus, p. 338 and, later, Aleksandr Kerensky's private secretary, helping him complete his memoirs. After fleeing Lithuania to avoid being arrested by the advancing

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

in 1944, and living briefly in

Bad Nauheim Bad Nauheim () is a town in the Wetteraukreis district of Hesse state of Germany. As of 2020, Bad Nauheim has a population of 32,493. The town is approximately north of Frankfurt am Main, on the east edge of the Taunus mountain range. It is a w ...

Frankfurt Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...

, Germany, initially under

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

control and then under the occupying forces, Jurgis Mačiūnas and his family emigrated to the US in 1948, living in a middle class area of

Long Island Long Island is a densely populated continental island in southeastern New York (state), New York state, extending into the Atlantic Ocean. It constitutes a significant share of the New York metropolitan area in both population and land are ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

. After arriving in the US, George studied art,

graphic design Graphic design is a profession, academic discipline and applied art that involves creating visual communications intended to transmit specific messages to social groups, with specific objectives. Graphic design is an interdisciplinary branch of ...

, and architecture at

Cooper Union The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, commonly known as Cooper Union, is a private college on Cooper Square in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-s ...

, architecture and

musicology Musicology is the academic, research-based study of music, as opposed to musical composition or performance. Musicology research combines and intersects with many fields, including psychology, sociology, acoustics, neurology, natural sciences, ...

at the

Carnegie Institute of Technology Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institu ...

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

and finally

art history Art history is the study of Work of art, artistic works made throughout human history. Among other topics, it studies art’s formal qualities, its impact on societies and cultures, and how artistic styles have changed throughout history. Tradit ...

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

's Institute of Fine Arts specializing in the European and Siberian art of migrations. His studies lasted eleven years from 1949 to 1960 and were completed in succession. This began a fascination with the

history of art The history of art focuses on objects made by humans for any number of spiritual, narrative, philosophical, symbolic, conceptual, documentary, decorative, and even functional and other purposes, but with a primary emphasis on its aesthetics ...

for the rest of his life, and whilst there he began his first art-history chart, measuring 6 by 12 feet, a ''time/space chart categorizing all past styles, movements, schools, artists etc.'' between 1955 and 1960. Whilst this project remained unfinished, he would publish three versions of a history of the avant-garde. The first appeared in 1966, with

as the focal point. He also began a correspondence with

Raoul Hausmann Raoul Hausmann (July 12, 1886 – February 1, 1971) was an Austrian artist and writer. One of the key figures in Berlin Dada, his experimental photographic collages, sound poetry, and institutional critiques would have a profound influence on ...

, an original member of Berlin Dada, who advised him to stop using the term "neo-dada" and concentrate instead on "Fluxus" to describe the nascent movement.

Duke University Duke University is a Private university, private research university in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity, North Carolina, Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1 ...

Professor

Kristine Stiles Kristine Stiles (born Kristine Elaine Dolan in Denver, Colorado, 1947) is the France Family Distinguished Professor of Art, Art History and Visual Studies at Duke University. She is an art historian, curator, and artist specializing in global cont ...

has discussed Fluxus as part of a movement towards global

humanism Humanism is a philosophy, philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential, and Agency (philosophy), agency of human beings, whom it considers the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The me ...

achieved through the breakdown of boundaries in artistic media, cultural norms, and political conventions. The blurring of cultural conventions, which began in the early 20th century with movements such as Dada and

Futurism Futurism ( ) was an Art movement, artistic and social movement that originated in Italy, and to a lesser extent in other countries, in the early 20th century. It emphasized dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, and objects such as the ...

, was continued by Fluxus artists in correspondence with the changes taking place in the sixties. Like the definition of "Flux", which means "to flow", Fluxus artists sought to reorder the temples of production and reveal "the extraordinary that remains latent in the undisclosed ordinary" during the midst of the dramatic

modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

epoch.

Career

Primarily influenced by

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and Extended technique, non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one ...

's Experimental Music Composition classes at the

New School for Social Research The New School for Social Research (NSSR), previously known as The University in Exile and The New School University, is a graduate-level educational division of The New School in New York City, United States. NSSR enrolls more than 1,000 stud ...

and an emerging interest in

Eastern Philosophy Eastern philosophy (also called Asian philosophy or Oriental philosophy) includes the various philosophies that originated in East and South Asia, including Chinese philosophy, Japanese philosophy, Korean philosophy, and Vietnamese philoso ...

, a number of

avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...

artists in New York were beginning to run parallel and competing

s at the beginning of the 1960s. As well as Maciunas' concerts at the AG Gallery in March 1961 featuring music and events by Maciunas himself,

Toshi Ichiyanagi was a Japanese avant-garde composer and pianist. One of the leading composers in Japan during the postwar era, Ichiyanagi worked in a range of genres, composing Western-style operas and orchestral and chamber works, as well as compositions usi ...

, Mac Low and

Dick Higgins Dick Higgins (15 March 1938 – 25 October 1998) was an American artist, composer, art theorist, poet, publisher, printmaker, and a co-founder of the Fluxus international artistic movement (and community). Inspired by John Cage, Higgins was ...

, the two other most important precursors to Fluxus were

La Monte Young La Monte Thornton Young (born October 14, 1935) is an American composer, musician, and performance artist recognized as one of the first American minimalist composers and a central figure in Fluxus and post-war avant-garde music. He is best k ...

's influential series of performances in the

Chambers Street Chambers Street may refer to: Streets * Chambers Street, Edinburgh, Scotland * Chambers Street (Manhattan), New York City, U.S. * Chamber Street, once known as Chambers Street, London Borough of Tower Hamlets, England New York City Subway station ...

loft of

Yoko Ono Yoko Ono (, usually spelled in katakana as ; born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art and filmmaking. Ono grew up in Tokyo and moved to New York ...

and Toshi Ichiyanagi in 1961 involving

Henry Flynt Henry Flynt (born 1940 in Greensboro, North Carolina) is an American philosopher, musician, writer, activist, and artist connected to the 1960s New York avant-garde. He coined the term "concept art" in the early 1960s, during which time he was ...

, La Monte Young,

Joseph Byrd Joseph Hunter Byrd Jr. (born December 19, 1937) is an American composer, musician and academic. After first becoming known as an experimental composer in New York City and Los Angeles in the early and mid-1960s, he became the leader of The Uni ...

Robert Morris Robert or Bob Morris may refer to: :''Ordered chronologically within each section.'' Politics and the law * Robert Hunter Morris (1700–1764), lieutenant governor of Colonial Pennsylvania * Robert Morris (financier) (1734–1806), one of the Foun ...

amongst others; and

Robert Watts Robert Watts (23 May 1938 – 30 September 2024) was a British film producer who was best known for his involvement with the ''Star Wars'' and ''Indiana Jones'' film series. Career Watts began working in the film industry in 1960, after two ye ...

and

George Brecht George Brecht (August 27, 1926 – December 5, 2008), born George Ellis MacDiarmid, was an American conceptual artist and avant-garde composer, as well as a professional chemist who worked as a consultant for companies including Pfizer, Johnso ...

's ''Yam Festival'', spring 1963 at

Rutgers University Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...

and New York, which included a series of

mail art Mail art, also known as postal art and correspondence art, is an artistic movement centered on sending small-scale works through the mail, postal service. It developed out of what eventually became Ray Johnson's New York Correspondence School and ...

event scores and performances by John Cage,

Allan Kaprow Allan Kaprow (August 23, 1927 – April 5, 2006) was an American performance artist, installation artist, painter, and assemblagist . He helped to develop the " Environment" and "Happening" in the late 1950s and 1960s, as well as their theory. ...

Alison Knowles Alison Knowles (born 1933) is an American visual artist known for her installations, performances, soundworks, and publications. Knowles was a founding member of the Fluxus movement, an international network of artists who aspired to merge diffe ...

Ay-O Takao Iijima (born May 19, 1931), better known by his art name Ay-O (靉嘔 ''Ai Ō''), is a Japanese avant-garde visual and performance artist who has been associated with Fluxus since its international beginnings in the 1960s. Biography Earl ...

, and Dick Higgins. All of these artists and more eventually became associated with Fluxus, either through their collaboration on multiples, inclusion in anthologies, or participation in Fluxus concerts'. Other key influences noted by Maciunas included the

s that had occurred at the

Black Mountain College Black Mountain College was a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Black Mountain, North Carolina. It was founded in 1933 by John Andrew Rice, Theodore Dreier, and several others. The coll ...

involving

Robert Rauschenberg Milton Ernest "Robert" or "Bob" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combine painting, Combines (1954� ...

, John Cage,

David Tudor David Eugene Tudor (January 20, 1926 – August 13, 1996) was an American pianist and composer of experimental music. Life and career Tudor was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He studied piano with Irma Wolpe and composition with Stefa ...

Merce Cunningham Mercier Philip "Merce" Cunningham (April 16, 1919 – July 26, 2009) was an American dancer and choreographer who was at the forefront of American modern dance for more than 50 years. He frequently collaborated with artists of other discipl ...

, and others; the Nouveaux Réalistes; the Concept Art of

and

Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, ; ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, Futurism and conceptual art. He is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Pica ...

's notion of the

readymade A found object (a calque from the French ''objet trouvé''), or found art, is art created from undisguised, but often modified, items or products that are not normally considered materials from which art is made, often because they already have ...

. Though Maciunas conceived of the name "Fluxus" for a publication covering Lithuanian Culture conceived of during a meeting of Lithuanian émigrés, Fluxus soon developed into much more: an avant-garde movement characterized by playful subversion of previous art traditions (even including those of previous avant-garde movements). Fluxus also soon meant Dick Higgins' famously coined term ''

intermedia Intermedia is an art theory term coined in the mid-1960s by Fluxus artist Dick Higgins to describe the strategies of interdisciplinarity that occur within artworks existing between artistic genres. It was also used by John Brockman to refer to ...

'', a view that art should not-be something rarefied or commercial, and a firm commitment to blurring the distinctions between art and life. Maciunas' lifelong interest in

diagram A diagram is a symbolic Depiction, representation of information using Visualization (graphics), visualization techniques. Diagrams have been used since prehistoric times on Cave painting, walls of caves, but became more prevalent during the Age o ...

s made him chart the political, cultural and social history as well as art history and the chronology of Fluxus. In 1963, Maciunas composed the first Fluxus

Manifesto A manifesto is a written declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of the issuer, be it an individual, group, political party, or government. A manifesto can accept a previously published opinion or public consensus, but many prominent ...

, (see above), which called upon its readers to:

...purge the world of bourgeois sickness, 'intellectual', professional & commercialized culture ... PROMOTE A REVOLUTIONARY FLOOD AND TIDE IN ART, ... promote NON ART REALITY to be grasped by all peoples, not only critics, dilettantes and professionals ... FUSE the cadres of cultural, social & political revolutionaries into united front & action.

Shared by its sibling art movements pop art and

minimalism In visual arts, music, and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in the post-war era in western art. The movement is often interpreted as a reaction to abstract expressionism and modernism; it anticipated contemporary post-mi ...

, Fluxus expressed a

countercultural A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Ho ...

sentiment to the value of art and the modes of its experience –distinctly achieved by its commitment to

collectivism In sociology, a social organization is a pattern of relationships between and among individuals and groups. Characteristics of social organization can include qualities such as sexual composition, spatiotemporal cohesion, leadership, struct ...

and to decommodifying and deaestheticizing art. Its aesthetic practitioners, valuing originality over imitating overworked forms, reconceptualized the art object and the nature of performance through musical 'concerts', 'olympic' games, and publications. By undermining the traditional role of art and artist, its humor is reflective of a goal to bring life back into art, which Maciunas states in his agenda, "If man could experience the world, the concrete world surrounding him (from mathematical ideas to physical matter) in the same way he experiences art, there would be no need for art, artists and similar 'nonproductive' elements".

The AG Gallery and the first Fluxus festivals

In 1960, whilst attending composition classes of the electronic composer

Richard Maxfield Richard Vance Maxfield (February 2, 1927 – June 27, 1969) was a composer of instrumental, electroacoustic, and electronic music. Born in Seattle, Maxfield studied at Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley (with Roger Sessions ...

at the

in New York, Maciunas met many of the future participants of Fluxus, including

Al Hansen Alfred Earl "Al" Hansen (5 October 1927 – 20 June 1995) was an American artist. He was a member of Fluxus, a movement that originated on an artists' collective around George Maciunas. He was the father of Andy Warhol protégé Bibbe Ha ...

, and

Jackson Mac Low Jackson Mac Low (September 12, 1922 – December 8, 2004) was an American poet, performance artist, composer and playwright, known to most readers of poetry as a practitioner of systematic chance operations and other non-intentional compos ...

. In 1961 he opened the AG Gallery at 925 Madison Avenue with fellow Lithuanian Almus Salcius, intending to finance the gallery's ambitious programme of events and exhibitions by importing

delicatessen A delicatessen or deli is a grocery that sells a selection of fine, exotic, or foreign prepared foods. Delicatessens originated in Germany (contemporary spelling: ) during the 18th century and spread to the United States in the mid-19th centur ...

foods and rare musical instruments. The gallery, though short-lived (it closed on July 30 due to lack of funds), was devoted to new and groundbreaking art across genres and held exhibits and

performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

events by many of his new acquaintances. To avoid debt collectors, Maciunas took a job as a civilian graphic designer at a

U.S. Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its origins to 1 ...

base in

Wiesbaden, Germany Wiesbaden (; ) is the capital of the German state of Hesse, and the second-largest Hessian city after Frankfurt am Main. With around 283,000 inhabitants, it is Germany's 24th-largest city. Wiesbaden forms a conurbation with a population of aro ...

in late 1961. It was there that he organized the first Fluxus Festival in September 1962. This festival featured various "concerts," scripted actions performed by Fluxus artists, as well as interpreting a number of works by other members of the international

. One of the most notorious events performed at Wiesbaden was Maciunas' interpretation of

Philip Corner Philip Lionel Corner (b. The Bronx, New York, April 10, 1933; name sometimes given as Phil Corner) is an American composer, trombonist, alphornist, vocalist, pianist, music theorist, music educator, and visual artist. Biography After The ...

's ''Piano Activities'', the score of which asked a group of people to 'play', 'scratch or rub' and 'strike soundboard, pins, lid or drag various objects across them.' In Maciunas' interpretation, with the help of Higgins, Williams and others, the piano was completely destroyed. This event was considered scandalous enough to appear on German television four times. The festival then traveled to

Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, seventh-largest city ...

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

The Hague The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...

, and

Nice Nice ( ; ) is a city in and the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative city limits, with a population of nearly one millionLook'' art director Jack Marshad. He established the official Fluxus Headquarters at 359

Canal Street Canal Street may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Canal Street (Manchester), Manchester, England * Canal Street, Oxford, Jericho, Oxford, England United States * Canal Street (Buffalo), a street and district at the western terminus of the Er ...

in New York City and proceeded to make Fluxus into a sort of multinational corporation, replete with "a complex amalgam of Fluxus Products from the FluxShop and the Flux Mail-Order Catalogue and Warehouse, Fluxus copyright protection, a collective newspaper, a Flux Housing Cooperative and frequently revised lists of incorporated Fluxus "workers". The shop, like all his business ventures, was notoriously unsuccessful, however. In a 1978 interview with Larry Miller shortly before his death, Maciunas estimated spending 'about $50,000' on Fluxus projects over the years that would never recoup their investment.

Larry Miller, "May I ask a stupid question? Why didn't it pay off? Because isn't part of the idea that it's low cost and multiple distribution..."

GM; "No one was buying it, in those days. We opened up a store on
Canal Street Canal Street may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Canal Street (Manchester), Manchester, England * Canal Street, Oxford, Jericho, Oxford, England United States * Canal Street (Buffalo), a street and district at the western terminus of the Er ...
, what was it, 1964, and we had it open almost all year. We didn't make one sale in that whole year... We did not even sell a 50 cent item, a postage stamp sheet... you could buy V TRE papers for a quarter, you could buy
George Brecht George Brecht (August 27, 1926 – December 5, 2008), born George Ellis MacDiarmid, was an American conceptual artist and avant-garde composer, as well as a professional chemist who worked as a consultant for companies including Pfizer, Johnso ...
's puzzles for one dollar, Fluxus yearboxes for twenty dollars."

Flux boxes

During this time, Maciunas was assembling Fluxus boxes and Flux-Kits, small boxes containing cards and objects designed and assembled by artists such as

Christo Christo Vladimirov Javacheff (1935–2020) and Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon (1935–2009), known as Christo and Jeanne-Claude, were artists noted for their large-scale, site-specific environmental installations, often large landmarks a ...

, Yoko Ono, and George Brecht. The first one to be planned was ''Fluxus 1'', a wooden box filled with artworks by most of Maciunas' colleagues. Production difficulties meant that the publication date was pushed back to 1964; Brecht's ''Water Yam'', 1963, became the first Flux box to actually be published. It was quickly followed by similar collected works of other affiliated artists, such as

Ben Vautier Benjamin Vautier (; 18 July 1935 – 5 June 2024), also known mononymously as Ben, was a French visual artist. Early life Benjamin Vautier was born on 18 July 1935 in Naples, Italy, to a French family. He was the great-grandson of the Swiss p ...

and Robert Watts; the ''Fluxkit'' contained in an

attaché case A briefcase or an attaché case (/əˈtæʃeɪ/) is a narrow hard-sided box-shaped bag or case used mainly for carrying papers and equipped with a handle. Lawyers commonly use briefcases to carry briefs to present to a court, hence the name. Bu ...

(1965–66) and another compendium ''Flux Year Box 2'' (1966–68). There was an anthology of ''Fluxfilms'' (1966), 11 irregularly-spaced editions of the Fluxus newspaper ''cc V TRE'' edited with George Brecht (1964–79) and the ''Fluxus Cabinet'' (1975–77). He was also closely involved with the production of a number of ''Flux Chess'' sets.

Perhaps most important of all of Maciunas's publishing activities remain the object multiples, conceived as inexpensive, mass-produced unlimited editions. These were either works made by individual Fluxus artists, sometimes in collaboration with Maciunas, or, most controversially, Maciunas's own interpretations of an artist's concept or score. Their purpose was to erode the cultural status of art and to help to eliminate the artist's ego.

Maciunas, a trained graphic designer, was responsible for the memorable packaging of Fluxus objects, posters and newspapers, helping to give the movement a sense of unity that the artists themselves often denied. He also designed a series of name cards incorporating multiple fonts to characterise each of the participating artists. According to Maciunas, Fluxus was epitomized by the work of George Brecht, particularly his word event, "Exit." The artwork consists solely of a card on which is printed the words: "Word Event" and then the word "Exit" below. Maciunas said of "Exit":

The best Fluxus 'Composition' is a most non-personal, 'readymade' one like Brecht's 'Exit'—it does not require and of us to perform it since it happens daily without any 'special' performance of it. Thus our festivals will eliminate themselves (and our need to participate) when they become total readymades (like Brecht's exit) (se

Some works

Whilst Maciunas was still alive, no Fluxus work was ever signed or numbered, and many weren't even credited to any artist. As such, huge confusion continues to surround many key Fluxus works; Maciunas strived to uphold his stated aims of demonstrating the artist's 'non-professional status...his dispensability and inclusiveness' and that 'anything can be art and anyone can do it.' This strategy was maintained throughout his life; key works that have been assigned to him include ''USA Surpasses all the Genocide Records!'', c1966 (se

, an

American Flag The national flag of the United States, often referred to as the American flag or the U.S. flag, consists of thirteen horizontal Bar (heraldry), stripes, Variation of the field, alternating red and white, with a blue rectangle in the Canton ( ...

comparing massacres in Nazi Germany, Russia and Vietnam; the ''Flux Smile Machine'' c1970 (se

) in which a spring forces the mouth into a grimace, usually considered a critique on capitalist

imperialism Imperialism is the maintaining and extending of Power (international relations), power over foreign nations, particularly through expansionism, employing both hard power (military and economic power) and soft power (diplomatic power and cultura ...

; and the film ''12! Big Names!'', 1973 (for the poster se

in which the assembled audience, having been enticed into the cinema with the promise of 12 big names, including

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (;''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''"Warhol" born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director and producer. A leading figure in the pop art movement, Warhol ...

and Yoko Ono, watched a film made entirely of 12 names—Warhol, Ono etc.—filling the screen, one after the other, for a duration of five minutes each.

Professional employments

Maciunas held several prestigious professional positions as an architect and graphic designer in firms including

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill SOM, an initialism of its original name Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, is a Chicago-based architectural, urban planning, and engineering firm. It was founded in 1936 by Louis Skidmore and Nathaniel Owings. In 1939, they were joined by engineer ...

, Air Force Exchanges (Europe), Jack Marshad Inc., Olin Mathieson Chemical Corporation, and

Knoll In geography, knoll is another term for a knowe or hillock, a small, low, round natural hill or mound. Knoll may also refer to: Places * Knoll Camp, site of an Iron Age hill fort Hampshire, England, United Kingdom * Knoll Lake, Leonard Canyon, ...

Associates. As an architect, he developed an innovative modular prototype useful in the construction of prefabricated buildings while working at Olin Mathieson's division of Aluminum Product Development and Design. He filed a patent (#2,970,676) for the invention of a structural framework for prefabricated buildings using aluminum beams and columns on January 27, 1958. Maciunas was awarded a patent (#4,545,159) for a modular building system on February 7, 1961. He used this invention towards designing a modular prefabricated mass-housing system known as Fluxhouse. Developed as an improved design to Soviet Block Housing (or

Khrushchyovka ''Khrushchevkas'' ( rus, хрущёвка, khrushchyovka, p=xrʊˈɕːɵfkə) are a type of low-cost, concrete- paneled or brick three- to five-storied apartment buildings (and apartments in these buildings) which were designed and constructe ...

), Fluxhouse was conceived in consideration to efficiency of materials, transportation, and labor to produce a cost and time effective mass-produced housing system. As an efficient modular system intended for factory production, this eco-friendly and sustainable design can be adapted to construct a single family home, a mid-rise building, or a neighborhood community with the multiplication or subtraction of units. Maciunas conceived this design as a dwelling which combines the low-cost advantages of standardization with the freedom of customization.

SoHo and the Fluxhouse Co-Operative

As an urban planner, Maciunas is credited as the "Father of

SoHo SoHo, short for "South of Houston Street, Houston Street", is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Since the 1970s, the neighborhood has been the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, art installations such as The Wall ...

" for developing dilapidated loft buildings and gentrifying the neighborhood with artists cooperatives known as the Fluxhouse Cooperatives during the late sixties. Maciunas converted buildings into live-work spaces for and envisioned the Fluxhouse Cooperatives as collective living environments composed of artists working in many mediums. With financial support from the J.M. Kaplan Foundation and the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the feder ...

, Maciunas began buying several loft buildings from closing manufacturing companies in 1966. The renovation and occupancies violated the M-I

zoning laws In urban planning, zoning is a method in which a municipality or other tier of government divides land into land-use "zones", each of which has a set of regulations for new development that differs from other zones. Zones may be defined for a ...

that designated SoHo as a non-residential area. The zoning laws were in place to construct the

Lower Manhattan Expressway Interstate 78 (I-78) is a part of the Interstate Highway System that runs from Union Township, Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, to New York City. In the US state of New York, I-78 extends . The entirety of I-78 consists of the Holland Tunne ...

, a vast highway conceived by

Robert Moses Robert Moses (December 18, 1888 – July 29, 1981) was an American urban planner and public official who worked in the New York metropolitan area during the early to mid-20th century. Moses is regarded as one of the most powerful and influentia ...

which would have obliterated much of Lower Manhattan's industrial loft district. Though the

was opposed by dozens of public figures and over 200 community groups, Maciuanas' efforts and the loft artists' power effectively stopped Moses, "Opposition to the expressway was going nowhere. Our whole planning board couldn't even slow it down. Then a handful of artists stepped in and stopped it cold". When Kaplan left the project to embark on other artist cooperative buildings, Maciunas was left with little support against the law. Maciunas continued the co-op despite contravening planning laws, buying a series of loft buildings to sell to artists as working and living spaces. Although it was illegal to sell the units publicly without first filing a full-disclosure prospectus with the New York State Attorney General, Maciunas ignored the legal requirements, beginning a series of increasingly bizarre run-ins with the

Attorney General of New York The attorney general of New York is the chief legal officer of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York and head of the Department of Law of the government of New York (state), state government. The office has existed in various forms since ...

. Maciunas began wearing disguises and going out only at night. Strategies included sending postcards from around the world via associates and friends to persuade the authorities that he was abroad, and placing razor-sharp guillotine blades onto his front door to avoid unwanted visitors. Though, like other Fluxus projects, Maciunas managed his duties without personal profit, financial disputes between the cooperatives led to problems. On November 8, 1975, an argument with an electrician over unpaid bills resulted in a severe beating, allegedly by 'Mafia thugs', which left him with 4 broken ribs, a deflated lung, 36 stitches in his head and blind in one eye. He left New York shortly after, to attempt to start a Fluxus-oriented arts centre in a dilapidated mansion and

stud farm A stud farm or stud in animal husbandry is an establishment for selective breeding of livestock. The word "stud (animal), stud" comes from the Old English ''stod'' meaning "herd of horses, place where horses are kept for breeding". Historically, ...

in New Marlborough,

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

. The Fluxhouse cooperatives are often cited as playing a major role in regenerating and gentrifying SoHo. SoHo has since been an enclave in which contemporary art movements have developed and flourished.

Death

Perpetually sick, Maciunas developed cancer of the

pancreas The pancreas (plural pancreases, or pancreata) is an Organ (anatomy), organ of the Digestion, digestive system and endocrine system of vertebrates. In humans, it is located in the abdominal cavity, abdomen behind the stomach and functions as a ...

and

liver The liver is a major metabolic organ (anatomy), organ exclusively found in vertebrates, which performs many essential biological Function (biology), functions such as detoxification of the organism, and the Protein biosynthesis, synthesis of var ...

in 1977. He died on May 9 of the following year in a hospital in

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

. Three months before his death, he married his friend and companion, the poet Billie Hutching. After a legal wedding in

Lee, Massachusetts Lee is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts, metropolitan statistical area. The population was 5,788 at the 2020 census. Lee, which includes the villages of South and East Lee, is ...

, the couple performed a "Fluxwedding" in a friend's loft in SoHo, February 25, 1978. The bride and groom traded clothing. The event was taped by video artist Dimitri Devyatkin.

Posthumous reputation

Maciunas remains enigmatic to this day, and his reputation still elicits strong responses both from artists and critics who have come after Fluxus, and by artists who knew him whilst still alive.

Adrian Searle Adrian Searle (born 1953 in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire) is an art critic for ''The Guardian'', and has been writing for the paper since 1996. Previously he was a painter. Life and career Searle studied at the St Albans School of Art (197 ...

, art critic for ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'', put it succinctly in a review of a Fluxus exhibition; The view that his death liberated Fluxus is also widespread; The life of George Maciunas is subject of a documentary film by the Manhattan-based artist and independent filmmaker Jeffrey Perkins who met Maciunas in 1966. It is made out of Maciunas' friends voices, material from 44 interviews that had been gathered by Perkins since 2010 on his travels to Europe, America and Japan. An

oratorio An oratorio () is a musical composition with dramatic or narrative text for choir, soloists and orchestra or other ensemble. Similar to opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an instrumental ensemble, various distinguisha ...

loosely based on Maciunas and titled ''Machunas'' premiered in August 2005 in the St. Christopher Summer Festival in

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ) is the capital of and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, most-populous city in the Baltic states. The city's estimated January 2025 population w ...

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

. ''Machunas'' was conceived by artist

Lucio Pozzi Lucio Pozzi (born 1935 in Milan) is an Italian-born, American artist currently based in Hudson, New York, and Valeggio sul Mincio, Verona, Italy. He studied architecture in Rome before moving to New York City in 1962. Pozzi is a painter whose pa ...

, with music by Frank J. Oteri. Several of Maciunas' friends and colleagues protested the fact that the

libretto A libretto (From the Italian word , ) is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or Musical theatre, musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to th ...

was mistaken by many as a biography. In 2024, art historian Colby Chamberlain published an indepth book on Maciunas with the

University of Chicago Press The University of Chicago Press is the university press of the University of Chicago, a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. It is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It pu ...

called ''Fluxus Administration: George Maciunas and the Art of Paperwork''.

Dedicated museums and collections

Maciunas' work has been exhibited in many of the major museums around the world with archives held in

The Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a modern and contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. The institution was founde ...

The Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the U.S.: together with ...

, the

Getty Research Institute The Getty Research Institute (GRI), located at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California, is "dedicated to furthering knowledge and advancing understanding of the visual arts".

Staatsgalerie Stuttgart The Staatsgalerie Stuttgart (, "State Gallery") is an art museum in Stuttgart, Germany, it opened in 1843. In 1984, the opening of the Neue Staatsgalerie (''New State Gallery'') designed by James Stirling transformed the once provincial galler ...

, and

Kaunas Picture Gallery The Kaunas Picture Gallery () is an art museum based in Kaunas, Lithuania, which is a branch of the M. K. Čiurlionis National Art Museum. It opened in 1979, and houses part of the works donated by the famous Lithuanian collector Mykolas Žilin ...

, representing the Fluxus room. Recently acquired from the Gilbert and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection,

The Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, and includes over 200,000 works of arc ...

currently holds the largest collection of Maciunas and Fluxus works of 10,000 items. As part of a touring exhibition organized by

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College ( ) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, Dartmouth is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the America ...

, Maciunas' work was featured in ''Fluxus and the Essential Questions of Life'' at

's Grey Gallery in Fall 2011 and

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

's Museum of Art in Spring 2012. Despite controversy, the Stendhal gallery has held multiple exhibitions devoted to the legacy and work of George Maciunas. In 2005, they presented ''To George With Love: From the Personal Collection of

Jonas Mekas Jonas Mekas (; ; December 24, 1922 – January 23, 2019) was a Lithuanian-American filmmaker, poet, and artist who has been called "the godfather of American avant-garde cinema". Mekas's work has been exhibited in museums and at festivals world ...

'', which displayed original drawings, posters, objects, and other Fluxus items as well as various films from the Fluxfilm Anthology, a collection of 41 films made by Fluxus artists. In 2006, the gallery presented ''George Maciunas, 1953–1978: Charts Diagrams, Films, Documents, and Atlases''. In 2007, the Maya Stendhal Gallery collaborated with the city of Vilnius, Lithuania, to open the

Visual Arts Center. The center's inaugural exhibition examined the lives and work of prominent figures within the history of the avant-garde, including George Maciunas. In 2008, the gallery held an exhibition devoted to Maciunas' architectural projects, in particular, a utopian housing structure Maciunas drafted in the late fifties and early sixties, entitled ''George Maciunas: Prefabricated Building Systems''. In 2010 problems arose between

Harry Stendhal Harry Stendhal (born 20th century) is an American gallerist, arts organization founder, and entrepreneur. Galleries As an art dealer, he operated the Stendhal commercial gallery in the Soho section of New York City and then the Maya Stendhal Gal ...

and Jonas Mekas in which some of the practices of the Stendhal Gallery fell into question, causing concern among surviving Fluxus artists. The George Maciunas/Fluxus Foundation, became active in November 2011, presenting exhibitions on the contemporary applications of Maciunas' inventions and theories regarding education and architecture. These exhibitions have explored his ideas as precursors to adaptive design processes and global networks. In September 2012, the foundation held an exhibition on Maciunas' architectural work centered on his

prefabricated Prefabrication is the practice of assembling components of a structure in a factory or other manufacturing site, and transporting complete assemblies or sub-assemblies to the construction site where the structure is to be located. Some research ...

modular mass-housing system known as Fluxhouse.

Notes and references

Films about George Maciunas

''George''. Jeffrey Perkins, Documentary feature-length film/video portrait of George Maciunas, US, 2018 ''George'', 2018, IMDb
/ref>

External links

*
Museum Fluxus+ Potsdam Germany

1962–2012 50 years Fluxus in Germany

* ttp://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/traitor/images/2/ An extraordinary postcard sent to Nam June Paik, expelling him from Fluxus after performing with Stockhausen, c1965
The Fluxus edition of Aspen on UbuWeb

Reminiscences of meeting Maciunas, by Yoko Ono

*

George Maciunas Inerview – KRAB Radio Broadcast, Seattle, 1977 (streaming audio clips)

A nice archive of Flux boxes at Printed Matter

Media Art Net archive of early Fluxus works

* ttp://rwm.macba.cat/en/specials?id_capsula=614 FluxRadioan online radio programme on the Fluxus movement at Ràdio Web MACBA
Kaunas Picture Gallery , Fluxus RoomGeorge Maciunas works - MoMAGeorge Maciunas works - Fondazione Bonotto
{{DEFAULTSORT:Maciunas, George 1931 births 1978 deaths American artists Deaths from liver cancer in the United States Deaths from pancreatic cancer in Massachusetts Artists from Kaunas Lithuanian refugees in the United States Lithuanian artists Fluxus Neo-Dada Eyepatch wearers

Early life

Career

The AG Gallery and the first Fluxus festivals

Flux boxes

Some works

Professional employments

SoHo and the Fluxhouse Co-Operative

Death

Posthumous reputation

Dedicated museums and collections

See also

Notes and references

Further reading

Films about George Maciunas

External links