George Maciunas, Fluxpost (Smiles), 1977-79, detail view of perforated postage stamp paper, 10 3/8 x 8 1/4 in.

FLUXCONCERT 20080305
8pm Wednesday 5 March 2008
47 Beaver (at Park St), Brooklyn NY
$8

Artist Perry Garvin has organized a performance of 26 historical Fluxus event scores tonight at 47 Beaver in Brooklyn. The evening is organized to "breathe new life into these historic scripts by weaving together an evening of absurdism and humor." FLUXCONCERT will feature a cast of seven performing texts written by Fluxus members on the periphery as well as the center of the particular historic moment. In many ways Fluxus was an art of small things: George Maciunas'sFluxpost (Smiles) (1977-78) for example, a collection of tiny prints of on perforated postage stamp paper, is at once an economic and vernacular work that rides on the back of a populist media form and creates a kind of agitational anti-advertising, presenting forced smiling faces that seem to belie a lack of access to good dentistry and hygenic practice rather than the usual projected pleasure of each photo's subject. Many Fluxus films are conversely far more singular in their conception, if visually similar to Maciunas' aesthetic of repetition, seriality, close up and incomplete views. Flux Films often feature a single subject or filmic effect carried out for each film's duration. Nam June Paik's Zen for Film (1962), to take one obvious example, is composed of a few title frames and a reel of white leader which illuminates the theater space when projected while occasionally flickering with the passing bits of dust and other signs of wear along with the film through the projector's gate. The Fluxus Performance Workbook, which contains the scripts for many of tonight's performances is constituted of simple, paragraph long instructions for acoustic actions intended to be carried out (often by a single performer) for a group of people. Robert Bozzi's A Piece for Chieko Shiomi has a performer hold and drop various objects, with mind to each object's equally varying acoustic consequence. Lee Heflin's Fall, meanwhile, instructs the performer simply to "throw things that are difficult to throw because of their light weight."

Reservations are recommended.