Immunizing against the Bourgeois Sickness
Maciunas, Fluxus Manifesto. 1963 (MoMA)
Fluxus was never a style. It was, and remains a method of rupture against whatever form the bourgeois separation of Art from life has taken.. A rupture practice that is absolutely necessary in any era if we’re to authentically experience art. Particularly now while drowning in overly curated, mass marketed products that speak more to phantom, meta realm vanity than to meaningful artistic form.
Our tech age has birthed its own bourgeois sickness. One that goes beyond what the original Fluxus movement diagnosed. We stand in a mutation space parallel to the “Europanism” the manifesto critiques.
Original Fluxus rejected the European cult of elitism and flaunting pretense by stripping away the frivolous superiority that elevated art above actual life. But today’s version of the sickness is different. Status and worth are now granted through emptiness via nihilistic intensity,.. through metrics, spectacle & meaningless self quantification. Its defined by smoke and mirrors, artificial exclusivity, and number based fame. All those things have replaced traits of opulence, decadence, and the worship of grandeur as the new measures of worth. Instead of a disconnect hiding behind excess, we now face a disconnect that masquerades as importance.
In this way, the original Fluxus idea foreshadowed the new disease. What began as a flowing "be here now" method to counter a flowless state, has become the very strain of the virus we now face, leaving meaning and nuance lost at sea. The manifesto becomes an organic moment in time, readable with clarity when coupled with present wisdom. To go beyond the negative effect, one must take the already blurred line between art and non‑art and eliminate it entirely in favor of art,
To be truly Fluxus now, you would have to recognize the act of total refusal of objects like authority and institutions require a structure force that renders the Fluxus itself an object. That fact swings the pendulum back where it came from as opposed to moving forward. If everything isn't art, then nothing is.
Blog originally posted HERE
Nicely written and an interesting ultimate conclusion.
I recall debating this back in the 1970s at senior school. My art teacher throughout this periods conclusion clearly was “art is everywhere, you just have to find it and make it your own or ….”
We made collages from rubbish, and anything else we could find.
Performance art - that terrified parents, one parents evening.
“Artistic sets of rooms” …
and more conventional styles of art.
Interesting times with digital art and AI art and whatever follows on my there.
Lots to ponder on, thank you…