The Fluxus movement originated in the 1960’s in New York, later spreading to Japan and New York. The movement’s style reduces gestures and mixes the ideals of the Dada, Bauhaus, and Zen movements. The Fluxus artists sought to presume that all media and artistic discipline was ‘fair game’ in terms of combinations and fusions of different styles.
The Fluxus movement was the precursor to many avant garde developments over the years following the art period. Although conventional art and media had been in ‘flux’ long before Fluxus, Dick Higgins was the first to name this development as an actual art movement. Higgins coined the word intermedia to explain a new development in artistic activity – between the media. His intent was to create an art theory of blurring and mixing different art principles and values (ie Futurism, Dada, Russian Constructivism).
The artwork of the Fluxus period is known for it’s minimalist but expressive approach to gestures, and it’s attempt to base art on scientific, philosophical, or sociological ideas. One of the best known artists of the Fluxus movement is Yoko Ono, who with many other Fluxus period artists all over the world sought to generate a solid Fluxus network. The artists of this movement were initially considered pranksters because of their playful and unconventional style.
To this day they are a network of radical visionaries that attempt to uproot social, political and aesthetic perceptions. Other famous Fluxus artists include Joseph Beuys, Dick Higgins, and Robert Filliou. Higgins stated that avant-garde artists like Alan Kaprow and Al Hansen were mixing different medias, and combining incongruous elements into a single piece of art. Thus they were contributing to the emerging Fluxus movement.
