Main content

Fluxus - 60 Years and Not Counting

Paul Morley celebrates an art movement full of irreverence and play. One you didn't so much as join but gravitate towards as art and life merged.

One didn't join Fluxus but rather gravitate towards its spirit. Founded by George Maciunas in 1960, it was, at first, rooted in experimental music, named after a magazine featuring the work of musicians and artists centred around John Cage. Fluxus was a network, or maybe a circle, or perhaps even a laboratory that could include, from time to time, Yoko Ono, Cage, Joseph Beuys, Nam June Paik and others in concerts, exhibitions, events. Infusing art in life, or was it the other way around? Cocking a snook at the art establishment with events like 'Washing Diapers at Observatory Pond' artists combined whimsy, playfulness and humour with political messages and lashings of irreverence. Paul Morley talks to surviving Fluxus artists Nye Ffarrabas and Anne Noel Williams and reaches into the archive to summon up the spirit of a movement that was intent on infusing both sacredness and humour into art.

Producer: Mark Burman

Available now

44 minutes

Last on

Tue 30 Aug 2022 22:00

Broadcasts

  • Sun 16 May 2021 18:45
  • Tue 30 Aug 2022 22:00

What was really wrong with Beethoven?

What was really wrong with Beethoven?

Georgia Mann and neurosurgeon Henry Marsh explore the puzzle of Beethoven’s poor health.

Classical music in a strongman's Russia – has anything changed since Stalin's day?

What composer Gabriel Prokofiev and I found in Putin's Moscow...

Six Secret Smuggled Books

Six classic works of literature we wouldn't have read if they hadn't been smuggled...

Grid

Seven images inspired by the grid

World Music collector, Sir David Attenborough

The field recordings Attenborough of music performances around the world.