Sometime in the
late-1950s, Fluxus began to appear on the landscape. Decidedly
contagious and surprisingly robust, it bounced from city to city in
tattered knapsacks and the trunks of Buicks, establishing itself
whenever and wherever it found a compatible host. It crept down back
alleys and lingered in the flickering light of subway tunnels. It
drifted into living rooms, offices and public parks. From elegant
high-rise apartments to cramped fourth-floor walk-ups, it seemed Fluxus
was everywhere.
Fluxus was, and
continues to be, a pivotal movement in the development of contemporary
art, music and performance. An attempt to reposition art back into
people's everyday lives, Fluxus was nothing short of a creative
revolution, and, like all good revolutions, it questioned the norm,
bucked the system, and placed the power of change firmly in the lap of
the people.
University of Maine
artist and professor Owen Smith could easily be described as one of the
high priests of Fluxus. The author of the book Fluxus: The History of
an Attitude, and numerous articles about the Fluxus phenomenon,
Smith is a highly respected historian on the genre. He also is an
accomplished artist. And, as Smith readily admits, the marriage of the
two professions can be a bit complicated.
"Even though I'm a
Fluxus historian, I don't call myself a Fluxus artist," says Smith,
whose expressions of art range from performance pieces and installations
to paintings and video. "There are a lot of similarities between my work
and Fluxus: in how I engage in thinking about art, where art exists and
what it looks like. My work is in the Fluxus vein, but I am not a Fluxus
artist."
In truth, the matter
of who is and who isn't a Fluxus artist is a point of contention among
historians and artists. Many artists' works are influenced to varying
degrees by the Fluxus legacy, but Smith sees the time and place in which
an artist became involved in the movement as critical. Smith references
himself as a case in point.
"For me, Fluxus is a
movement aimed at reconnecting people to art, but it is also an
historical movement during which established Fluxus artists lived and
worked, and that is a period that I am separate from."
According to Smith,
the Fluxus movement began in the 1950s. From Nam June Paik's One for
Violin Solo (where the performer slowly raises the violin over his or
her head and then smashes the instrument) to George Maciunas' Burglary
Fluxkit (a small box of numerous found keys), Fluxus had a strong
antiart and anticommercial focus, sought to make art part of people's
lives, encouraged participation of the audience in the creative work,
and valued simplicity over complexity.
Although not universally defined, Fluxus was an international
group of artists, writers, musicians and performers who explored new
forms of art, making and creating what is now often referred to as
intermedia (intersections of differing media) that stressed a commonness
and simplicity of materials for maximal effect, similar to haiku poetry.
In addition to its existence as a historical group, Fluxus also is a
philosophy and a way of thinking that is deeply engaged in the
importance of play as a creative process and mechanism, an approach
Smith has referred to as "being serious about not being serious."
Perhaps most
important, Fluxus is an attitude that Smith's work embraces. At the
heart of any Fluxus work — and at the heart of Smith's work — is the
all-important seminal concept: the seed idea or question that forms the
foundation for the artistic expression.
"My connection with
Fluxus lies in the idea that a work starts with a concept or an idea,
not with a particular medium," says Smith, whose Fluxus tendencies were
seen most recently at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockport,
Video Space in Raleigh, N.C., and the Artists' Book Archive at the
Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
A Semblance of
Resemblance: Art and the Nature of the Image, an exhibition by Smith,
Alan Stubbs and Andy Hurtt, is on display through Aug. 3 in Lord Hall on
campus.
"Once you have
identified the concept, you find whatever media or material that seems
most appropriate for the work. Fluxus tends to include a lot of humor
and play, which is often part of my work, as well. The core of my work
is in using art to investigate art itself, to get at how art affects our
thinking, our culture and our values."
A professional artist since the mid-1980s and a UMaine faculty
member since 1991, Smith has built an extensive and strikingly diverse
body of work that examines political, social and personal issues with
challenging insights and a uniquely descriptive aesthetic.
His work has been
included in more than 60 national and international exhibitions.
"Whatever medium I
choose to work in, the art itself is about the idea. What ideas are
worth exploring? What questions are worth asking? I want people to think
about what I explore or present in my work. I don't offer answers. I
don't want to. I want people to think."
Smith's desire to "get
people to think" is a common theme that links his varied pursuits as
artist, teacher and UMaine New Media Department chair. It is, perhaps,
the source of his energy and enthusiasm, as well.
After wrapping up a
spring show at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Smith headed
across the Atlantic this past May, playing yet another role in
Copenhagen as the co-organizer of an international conference on Events
and Event Structures at the Royal Danish Academy of Art.
In the classroom or
around the world, the exploration of ideas and the challenges they pose
are the moving forces behind Smith and his art.
"Art ultimately is not
about me gluing two things together, it's about me asking a question,"
says Smith. "The viewer then thinks about an answer, and it is in that
exchange where the art resides."
by
Margaret Nagle
