George Brecht
George Brecht was one of the early members of Fluxus in the United States. He was born in the town of Halfway, Oregon in 1924. It seems fitting that an important Fluxus artist would come from a place called "Halfway"; Fluxus being a movement that is seldom "All-the-way" to anywhere in particular.Brecht was one of the students attending John Cage's New School of Social Research in 1958 and 1959. He was associated with many of the Fluxus and related artists of the 1960s including, Daniel Spoerri, Dick Higgins, John Cage, Ray Johnson, Ken Friedman, and Alison Knowles. An article about Fluxus, written in 1964 by George Brecht can be read online at http://www.artnotart.com, an excerpt from the article follows:
Whether you think that concert halls, theaters, and art galleries are the natural places to present music, performances, and objects, or find these places mummifying, preferring streets, homes, and railway stations, or do not find it useful to distinguish between these two aspects of the world theater, there is someone associated with Fluxus who agrees with you. Artist, anti-artists, non-artists, anartists, the politically committed and the apolitical, poets of non-poetry, non-dancers dancing, doers, undoers, and non-doers, Fluxus encompasses opposites. Consider opposing it, supporting it, ignoring it, changing your mind.In my mind, Brecht encompasses the true spirit of Fluxus in the short statement above. Brecht was prescient in anticipating the core concepts of post-modernism while living in the midst of the modern era. Maybe the world owes much more to Fluxus than has been acknowledged to date. The idea of embracing polarity and dialogue rather than encouraging debate between conflicting positions is now being widely accepted in the popular literature around business, politics, and social issues.
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