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