Anykščiai happening festival
On Tuesday, September 23, Jonas Mekas visual arts center, Gynėjų str.14, Vilnius opens “Fluxus + Fluxus” exhibition.
The (anti)artistic movement Fluxus, born in early 1960s, for the most part thanks to George Mačiūnas, was so universal that it had diffused in time and space, and had had an impact on almost all subsequent art of America as well as Western and Eastern Europe. The Fluxus ideology was based on eliminating the boundary between art and daily routine, seriousness and being silly, aesthetics and ideology.
The ideas of George Mačiūnas and fluxus also had a tremendous influence on avant-garde (utopian, idealistic, etc.) aspirations of Lithuania’s artists of the Sąjūdis epoch and the first several years of Lithuania’s independence. Fluxus was one of the powerful stimuli to change ourselves as well as the world regardless of the fact that it was in another space and another time.
The Jonas Mekas Visual Arts Centre presents a double exhibition Fluxus plus Fluxus. One part of fluxus is a part of the New York Fluxus collection of the JMVAC (original works, documentation, posters, objects, artefacts, etc.). The latter is formed as a quasi-artistic, quasi-archival entirety of a certain utopian processual and performative vision, as a testimony of activity of the Fluxus movement and, at the same time, its individual members ‒ George Mačiūnas, Nam June Paik, George Brecht, Dick Higgins, Ben Vautier and others.
The other part of fluxus is an insertion into the main part of the exhibition, which supplements and extends the exposition by a Lithuanian fluxus segment. It includes video and photo documentation of several avant-garde festivals or particular actions influenced by the fluxus ideas, which were organised and held in Lithuania between 1988 and 1996, as well as several original artefacts.
Certainly it is not a comprehensive study of the impact of fluxus in Lithuania, however, it constitutes an attempt to draw a parallel between the original fluxus material and several Lithuanianexamples of fluxus (documentation). It includes archival material and several original artefacts from Anykščiai happenings festivals AN`88`89 held close to Anykščiai, in Ažuožeriai, in 1988-1989 as well as video recordings of the exhibition Fluxus & Mačiūnas (and its opening/closing happenings) arranged in Vilnius, at the Children and Youth Centre, in 1992 wherein Fluxus originals were exhibited for the first time. It also includes activities of the group The Green Leaf (the exhibition features a video recording of the action The Road held next to the Town Hall of Vilnius in 1990), activities of the group Post Ars (the exhibition features several actions of this group) as well as video recordings of street art festivals Straight.Section organised by Redas Diržys in Alytus in 1993-1996.
This exhibition and its title constitute an attempt to see, in a non-obliging manner and with a certain dose of humour which is also characteristic of fluxus itself, what emerges if we add fluxus to fluxus ‒ just fluxus or fluxus and fluxus?
On video and photo documentations – Anykščiai happenings festivals (AN`88, AN`89), „Fluxus & Mačiūnas`92“, POST ARS group, The Green Leaf group, Straight. Section`95,`96 Alytus` street art festival (also Rūta Akelytė-Prusevičienė, Aleksas Andriuškevičius, Ašot, Robertas Antinis, pankas Atsuktuvas, Arvydas Baltrūnas, Aidas Bareikis, Kęstutis Bieliukas, Arūnas Dikčius, Indrė Diržienė, Redas Diržys, Donatas Jankauskas-Duonis, Jonas ir Justinas Vaitiekūnai, pankas Drambliukas, Martinas Jankus, Audrius Janušonis, Margarita Janušonienė, Evaldas Jansas, Raminta Jurėnaitė, Tomas Juzeliūnas, Laima Kabelienė, Ričardas Kabelis, Leila Kasputienė, Džiugas Katinas, Žilvinas Kempinas, Rytis Kubilius, Linas Liandzbergis, Eimantas Ludavičius, Gediminas Urbonas, Julius Ludavičius, Česlovas Lukenskas, Kęstutis Lupeikis, Ieva Martinaitytė, Rytis Mažulis, Virginijus Mickus, Šarūnas Nakas, Ričardas Nemeikšis, Donatas Prusevičius, Sandra Skurvidaitė, Gintaras Sodeika, Rimantė Sodeikienė, Donatas Srogis, Modestas Saukaitis, pankė Silva, Ignas Šimelis, Saulius Tamulevičius-Faja, Vahan, Gintaras Zinkevičius, Gintaras Znamierowski, Gediminas Židonis…)
A performance, that took place in 1992, will be restored during the exhibition opening
Curator: Kęstutis Šapoka
