New book documents groundbreaking art movement with roots at Rutgers
Art in flux
Archived article from Sep 22, 2003
By Amy Vames
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40th anniversary events
Acolytes dressed in gorilla suits march into a chapel carrying a massive loaf of bread made of papier-maché and filled with flour and sawdust, then proceed to smash it with clubs. A Flux priest hits a mechanical dove suspended above the bread as the dove releases mud over the sacrament. Congregants are offered cookies that contain laxatives and a choir reads the Lord's Prayer in Latin, German, Russian, Italian and a dozen other languages.
That's just a snapshot of an event that took place not in some off-off-Broadway theater but in Voorhees Chapel on the Douglass campus more than 30 years ago. "Flux-Mass," as it was named by its creator, George Maciunas, is representative of the ground-breaking and often outrageous artistic movements known as Fluxus and happenings that flourished at Rutgers and elsewhere from the late 1950s to the early '70s.
A new book, "Critical Mass: Happenings, Fluxus, Performance, Intermedia and Rutgers University 1958-1972," documents this heady era of artistic experimentation that paved the way for the pop art of the '60s and '70s and the performance art of today. Geoffrey Hendricks, professor emeritus at Mason Gross School of the Arts, edited the book, which includes essays, reminiscences, interviews and documentation of various happenings and performances from that era.
The book also serves as a catalog for an exhibition that will be on view at the Mason Gross Art Galleries Oct. 1–Nov. 5. In addition, "Flux-Mass" will be performed at Rutgers Nov. 1, once again in Voorhees Chapel.
"I felt this was a chunk of history that Rutgers played a very significant role in," says Hendricks in explaining why he undertook the book, which is being distributed by Rutgers University Press. "Pop art wouldn't have happened without what happened here. Conceptual art, minimal art, process art all had roots here."
Fluxus, which celebrated its 40th anniversary last year, was pioneered by Maciunas, who coined the term. Although Maciunas was not a faculty member at Rutgers, he collaborated with the arts faculty at Douglass College and created works there. In a manifesto, Maciunas defined Fluxus as the purging of traditional art forms to create a revolutionary "living art … grasped by all peoples, not only critics, dilettantes and professionals. He also intended for Fluxus art to be a vehicle of social, cultural and political change," says Hendricks.
Most baby boomers will have at least a vague recollection of "Happenings," the first of which was held in Voorhees Chapel in 1958 by Allan Kaprow, who taught on the art faculty at Douglass. That year, Kaprow and colleagues George Brecht and Robert Watts, also a Rutgers faculty member, developed a series of events, lectures and performances in connection with appearances at Douglass by avant-garde composer John Cage and choreographer Paul Taylor.
The first happening involved the placement of several panels covered with different materials, such as mirror fragments, plastic apples and tar, at the front of the chapel. Students performed simple activities up and down the aisles.
In an interview in "Critical Mass," Kaprow says his goal was "to communicate the absurdity of the usual straightforward verbal explication of reality. I tried to design situations that were patently meaningless."
"‘Happenings,' more than Fluxus, were about taking an environment or situation and manipulating materials, letting the interaction of people, time and place be involved," explains Hendricks. "Intermedia, the movement referred to in the title of the book, refers to the blending of various art forms, say, dance, sculpture and poetry, so that art is no longer compartmentalized or made precious."
Among the essays in "Critical Mass" is "Not Present at the Creation," an essay by Michael Rockland, professor of American studies. When "Flux-Mass" took place at Douglass in 1970, Rockland was a new assistant dean at the college and an ex officio representative to the Voorhees Assembly Board, which was chaired by Hendricks. The board planned and sponsored events at Voorhees Chapel.
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