kagablog

it seems that situationism and fluxus are the like the divine grace of art history and art politics- religious people call upon grace when they need a tie-breaker or dont have any concept at hand appropriate to the moment. artists , musicians and architects call upon situationism or fluxus when there is not enough of the latest wind to fill their sails. – these are the abiding containers for artistic crisis and rapid reorientation- what would jesus do ? has its sincere echo in what did debord say?

debord’s legacy, like fluxus, resembles religion not only in how its powers are invoked but in hosting unending squabbles over authenticity, heresies and reforms. take henri lefebvre : on the face of its a slightly musty, vaguely doctrinaire marxist sociologist but he takes on an odd allure because he was in with debord then out with him-the first apostle becoming the first heretic.and the first reformist. he also becomes the antichrist- did he have the ideas first or did he pervert them immediately into faux-situationism? plenty of work for the phd exegetes and sincere preachers.

fluxus is by comparison more like the grail, real dan brown territory; some claim to have touched it, other claim to know exactly where it hidden or when it was lost and which conspiracies lie about it.. macuinas a very slight artist claims to be its curator while paik, a great artist simply ignores it. mary bauermeister seemed to have done most of it before it existed and yoko ono seems to have invented it elsewhere . nobody notices cage in the rush to tidy fluxus- perhaps he is the pope of another byzantine empire with its own fluxus and beuys is always seen as arriving at the last supper after the foot bathing and the dessert even though he implemented fluxus more thoroughly than all combined. then there is kagel who may well have invented it all in marginalia and diter roth who was certainly its encyclopedist . we have american nationalist fluxus and ambiguous eurpoean fluxus and the idea that fluxus is existential; a stance and a project that even under eighteen year old autonomists can pick up today and resume with full force when negri and hart finally become the bores they actually are – if only the can know who to read first!-and finally the link you mention argues that fluxus was a time capsule for all the juicy ideas of nineties science , this is prophecy fluxus. none of these tangles are foreign to a student of church history.

i would like to see a born again fluxus with its own evangelist franchise of fat dudes patting slobber off their jowls as they figure out how many customers are still out there needing fluxus blessings for their efforts to be relevant and soon we will have nigerian universal afrofluxus which will bring artists money and beautiful lovers even before they make any art just as long as they donate to the idea.