George Maciunas’s Bread & AG Opens in New York, the First Fluxus Event

The Lithuanian-American artist and curator, Maciunas founded and organized the Fluxus (“flowing” in English) movement’s first event. The event, which would be the first of a brilliant, art-chaning series, included readings by poet Frank Kuenstler. Fluxus, an international avant-garde movement, rejected traditional artistic mediums and emphasized performance, humor and experimentation. The movement has strong ties to Dada’s anti-art sentiment and is considered to be part of a broader Neo-Dada movement that emerged around this time. Fluxus has strong ties to both computer and generative art, particularly regarding the dematerialization of art and the rise of conceptual art which the movement propels. Fluxus also often features elements of rules-based practice. Additionally, it is multi-disciplinary with collaboration and audience participation encouraged, two further hallmarks of the rise of electronic art. Chance and randomness also play an important role in Fluxus performances. The focus was on process and concept rather than a unified finished art object, a tradition that continues today in many circles of digital generative art, particularly within academia. Like GRAV, Fluxus artists sought to diminish distinctions between art and everyday life with Deleuzian work often incorporating non-traditional materials and methods.