New Delhi   

A special show from Germany

‘Signs of time, 1989’: A collection of vintage invitation cards by Robert Rehfeldt on display at the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi.

NEW DELHI: A special German exhibition of original works like books, rare films, photographs, installations, posters and invitation cards is now on at the National Gallery of Modern Art here.

Organised by the National Gallery of Modern Art in collaboration with Goethe-Institute/Max Mueller Bhavan, “Fluxus in Germany from 1962-1994, A Long Story with Many Knots” opened on May 15 and will be open to the public till June 4. The artists on show include Joseph Beuys, John Cage, Ben Patterson, Nam June Paik, Dieter Roth, Wolf Vostell and Daniel Spoerri.

Taken from a Latin word meaning “to flow”, Fluxus is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They have been active in visual arts and music as well as literature, urban planning, architecture and design.

The roots of the Fluxus movement lie in the experimental directions of art in the early 20th Century. In 1962, the first Fluxus Festival was held in the Wiesbaden City Museum in Germany. Since then the term Fluxus has been used for concerts and events, manifestos and editions that have been held or published mainly in Europe, the United States and Japan.

Speaking about the ongoing exhibition, National Gallery of Modern Art Director Rajeev Lochan observes: “Ideas can be hypothetical but they need to be governed by their own logic, have their own philosophical background and in turn derive their own meaning. The resonating impact of Fluxus can be certainly seen and felt in the experimental works of several contemporary Indian artists who have utilised their inter-disciplinary modes of expression. It is indeed surprising to note that a movement that provided such diversity of thought and freedom of expression was not accorded the relevance and importance that it has deserved much to our dismay.”

A Fluxus artist from the early days, Ben Patterson lives and works in Wiesbaden and is pursuing the idea of Fluxus from there.

Stating that the means, materials and objective used by Fluxus artists are constantly changing and impossible to fix, Ben says: “Strictly speaking, Fluxus has never been a movement at all. It sprang from a loose international collective of artists, writers and musicians who began working to stage performances in the early 1960s. Still it helped spawn various genres like video art, performance art and conceptual art. The movement’s aim was to democratise art and foment cultural revolution, to find some way of putting avant-grade ideas into broader circulation than the powerful gallery network allowed at the time.”

Ben says most Fluxus art is playful, cheeky and heavily reliant on conceptual trickery. It messes about with your mental set-up and has a mind-expanding effect.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

A sweet and sour feast
A special show from Germany
Apex court dismisses appeal against HLL
Terror of the blade-runners
New Metro stretch to open on June 4
NTPC official drowns in Agra Canal
Congress appeal
Strike continues
Constitution Club bid to encroach upon public land
Trauma centre in deep waters
Winds delay flights at airport
CBSE Class X results
CAT rejects AIIMS official’s plea
Mayor appeals for online payment of property tax
MCD reshuffle
Action ordered against ‘erring’ MCD officials
LS polls anytime after August: CEC
EC notice to Naidu for code violation
Amitav Ghosh re-emerges with Sea of Poppies
Police relied on circumstantial evidence
Delhi improves performance
Of toppers and their ways
Alleged suicide
Realtor’s murder accused arrested
Cops’ kin killed in UP
Four arrested
In the Capital Today

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu