The Assemblagist

Ver­ily I say unto you… any­one can join in an argu­ment of Fluxus Rel­a­tiv­ity. Therein lies the rub, the point, the pur­pose, of the Very Fluxus Which We Love. Agree with me not.

Fluxus is a post-​World War II inter­na­tional phe­nom­e­non, a sort of anti-​movement
that worked between the var­i­ous media, spawn­ing the term “inter­me­dia.” Under its
broad umbrella artists cre­ated works of an ephemeral nature, often mail­ing their
prod­ucts to other Fluxartists and their fans. Artists as major and dif­fer­ent as
Joseph Beuys, Yoko, Ono, John Cage and Nam June Paik were part of it from time
to time.

Don’t you just love Art Fights?

In the Fluxus Inter­com­mu­nity, artis­ti­cal sorts are revving their dis­agree­ment engines up to 5,000 rpm and attempt­ing, through visual and dig­i­tal rep­re­sen­ta­tion to deter­mine whether or not Fluxus His­tor­i­cal is dead. In the one hand, you have the crip­pling effects of cura­to­r­ial advances and sales receipts who seek to dis­solve the dilap­i­da­tion of purity caused by moments of pro­duc­tion and cre­ativ­ity. The names? I can­not even pre­tend to com­pre­hend the sig­nif­i­cance of Fluxus Genius Incar­nate since, as a the­o­ret­i­cal process, I enter the scene early 21^st cen­tury and not, as pre-​supposed, upon my birth in 1954. But argue they must, dis­agree they will… and we who pro­duce shall suffer.

Imag­ine my dis­may, upon becom­ing the Assem­blag­ist Fluxus Admin­is­tra­tor, as knowl­edge of dis­con­tent­ment pre-​conditioned my inter­pre­ta­tion of the works of Cecil Tou­chon, Allen Bukoff, and oth­ers more inspired than I, to be in argu­men­ta­tive pose with those known as George Maci­u­nas and all I want to do is assem­ble the boxes of cat­e­gor­i­cal inspi­ra­tion. A Face­book Face-​Off. Fluxus His­tor­i­cal. Fluxus Con­tem­po­rary. Fluxux Incar­nate — what is the truth?

Any­way, ya’ll, the point being — jump­ing into the mid­dle of some­thing of which I have lit­tle or no knowl­edge is always a chal­lenge to be antic­i­pated with glee and for­ti­tude. As I remain a lit­eral and vir­tual crip­ple in my own world (but the ban­dages come off on Mon­day, yee haw, and my new bionic foot will pro­vide a more sta­ble atmos­phere for moga­tion, I shall become less of a freak show, no longer a nov­elty act in the Wal­Mart park­ing lot of life) the read­ing com­mences. It seems there is a piss­ing con­test between the Fluxus His­tor­i­cal being declared DOA and the Fluxus NOW being ever vibrant.

And, as in all Arguments

artis­ti­cal and theoretical

the cat­e­gories con­tain­ing the momen­tum always con­tain profit as a motive.

And who will make the even­tual chump change? Rarely the artists. As one can clearly com­pre­hend upon a visual tour of my stu­dio… yet I am rich, wealth beyond imag­i­na­tion, beyond yours or my wildest appre­ci­a­tion of terms.

Why?

Fam­ily.

Vir­tual and logistical.

As pre­vi­ously stated, the ban­dages will be removed on Monday.

c