A pioneering conceptual artist and founding member of the Fluxus movement, Yoko Ono has produced a diverse and ever-expanding body of work since she first emerged on the downtown avant garde art scene in the early 1960s. This presentation gives a broad overview of the artist’s career—which now spans more than five decades—and charts her growing influence in the fields of photography, installation, painting, conceptual art, music, and performance. Included are artists’ publications such as The Other Rooms, a sequel to the groundbreaking artists’ book Grapefruit, and the experimental narrative “Spare Room.” These works are presented alongside a selection of exhibition catalogs from around the globe.
Ono’s artists’ books and related publications have had a longtime presence at Printed Matter. The artist has been an active and enduring participant, supporter and advocate of the organization for decades. Grapefruit was amongst Printed Matter’s earliest inventory when the organization was located on Lispenard Street. In the early 2000s, Printed Matter, at that time on 22nd Street, staged an exhibition curated by then-Assistant Manager Amanda Keeley which featured scores of Ono’s artists’ books, posters, printed ephemera, and artists’ multiples. In 2010, Printed Matter was a recipient of Yoko Ono’s second annual Courage in the Arts Awards, alongside the Guerilla Girls and Émile Zola, posthumously.
Yoko Ono’s radical imagination and provocative wit are on full display within the pages of her wide-ranging creations, which serve as blueprints for building a more open and inventive global society.
La galleria VV8artecontemporanea e l’Archivio Storico Pari&Dispari propongono l’esposizione FLUX MOTUS L’Avanguardia nella città, a cura di Valerio Dehò. In mostra oltre 30 opere di Philip Corner, Wolf Vostell, Geoffrey Hendricks, Ben Vautier, Ben Patterson, Bob Watts, Giuseppe Chiari, Alison Knowles, Jackson Mac Low, Yoko Ono, Takako Saito, Nam June Paik, Charlotte Moorman.
Inaugurazione 13 maggio ore 18 Via dell’Aquila, 6/c, 42121 Reggio Emilia – Italy.
FLUX MOTUS, L’Avanguardia nella città 13 maggio – 30 giugno 2023. A cura di Valerio Dehò, in collaborazione con l’Archivio Storico Pari&Dispari @ VV8artecontemporanea, Via dell’Aquila, 6/c, Reggio Emilia
In mostra sono esposte edizioni di: Eric Andersen, Ay-O, Joseph Beuys, George Brecht, John Cage, Giuseppe Chiari, Philip Corner, Willem De Ridder, Jean Dupuy, Robert Filliou, Albert M. Fine, Henry Flynt, Ken Friedman, Al Hansen, Geoffrey Hendricks, Dick Higgins, Joe Jones, Allan Kaprow, Milan Knizak, Alison Knowles, Jackson Mac Low, George Maciunas, Walter Marchetti, Jonas Mekas, Larry Miller, Charlotte Moorman, Claes Oldenburg, Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik, Ben Patterson, Dieter Roth, Takako Saito, Tomas Schmit, Carolee Schneemann, Mieko Shiomi, Gianni-Emilio Simonetti, Daniel Spoerri, Ben Vautier, Wolf Vostell, Robert Watts, Emmett Williams e altri.
COLLABORATIONS Mumok Vienna July 2–November 6, 2022
Departing from the focuses of the Mumok collections on the avant-garde of the 1960s and 1970s as well as conceptual and socio-analytic approaches in contemporary art, the exhibition Collaborations examines diverse strategies of collective authorship. The exhibition builds a bridge spanning from the smallest to the largest unit of togetherness: from the internal ties of the collective to a particular constellation of the connective, from the artist duo to society—and last but not least, from the love affair to the interconnectedness of life.
The exhibition investigates how artistic models of a “we” can be cultivated for life together as a society: What does collaboration mean in the twenty-first century when fundamental social structures continue to dissolve? How have artists responded to such social and political developments over the decades and what is their position today? How thin is the line between the critique and affirmation of neoliberal structures when building relationships is at risk of becoming an efficiency and profit-driven measure in the artistic realm, too? How can collectivity in thoroughly heterogeneous contexts serve as a social and artistic model of thought and action, when not by accepting the simultaneity of disparate or even contrary elements?
In times of networked connectivity, a look back into art history might advance the current discussion about collaborative action—beyond conventional, social, and national borders. As a movement that not only fundamentally revolutionized artistic production, distribution, and reception paradigms but also originated numerous strategies that represent, as it were, predigital antecedents to algorithms, interconnected networks, and associated models of communitization, the Fluxus movement founded in the 1960s forms the nucleus of the presentation. In addition to the expansion of the typologies of works, image and object traditions, and artistic and participative methods, which were formative for the neo-avant-garde of the mid-twentieth century, the emphasis is placed specifically on the will and ability of artists to go beyond their personal scope in experimental collaborations with colleagues, to allow for change along with the shift in perspective on their own practice.
Collaborations highlights key aspects of the Mumok collection by exhibiting works that operate primarily on a meta-reflexive level. What these works, which often emerged in collective processes, have in common is that they all reflect on ways of living and working together. While the curatorial approach examines artist collectives and their underlying mechanisms and logics, it also frames acting itself as a form of collectivity—a form of acting that equally acknowledges the artistic expressions of individuals as well as those of groups or other models conceived as affiliations and alliances of the participants. The utopian potential of collaborations to transcend Western patriarchal power relations and art market logics of originality and solitary authorship and thereby provoke social change seems to be unwavering.
Artists: Marina Abramović & Ulay, Ant Farm, Art & Language, Martin Beck, Bernadette Corporation, Anna & Bernhard Blume, George Brecht, Günter Brus, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Chto Delat, Leidy Churchman, Clegg & Guttmann, Phil Collins, Bruce Conner, DIE DAMEN, Jean Dupuy, VALIE EXPORT, Peter Faecke and Wolf Vostell, Robert Filliou, Rimma Gerlovina & Valeriy Gerlovin, Gilbert & George, Manfred Grübl, Andreas Gursky, Richard Hamilton and Dieter Roth, Haus-Rucker-Co., Christine & Irene Hohenbüchler, IRWIN, Ray Johnson and Berty Skuber, On Kawara, Friedrich Kiesler, Alison Knowles, Brigitte Kowanz and Franz Graf, Louise Lawler, Lucy R. Lippard, Sharon Lockhart, George Maciunas, Larry Miller, Ree Morton, Otto Muehl, museum in progress, Moriz Nähr, Natalia L.L., Otto Neurath, Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik, Stephen Prina, Jörg Schlick, Hubert Schmalix, Secession, Seth Siegelaub, Christian Skrein, Daniel Spoerri, Petr Štembera and Tom Marioni, Thomas Struth, Timm Ulrichs, VBKÖ, Kerstin von Gabain and Nino Sakandelidze, Franz Erhard Walther, Robert Watts, Franz West, Wiener Gruppe, Oswald Wiener, Heimo Zobernig and others; with the video series lumbung calling from documenta fifteen, curated by ruangrupa.
Curated by Heike Eipeldauer and Franz Thalmair. Exhibition design by Anetta Mona Chişa & Lucia Tkáčová
Image: Ulay, Marina Abramovć, Breathing In / Breathing Out, 1977
Immagine tratta dall’opera “ritratto di George Maciunas” di Ben Patterson 1989
FLUXUS – ARTE TOTALE
13 maggio – 7 giugno 2022 Vernissage 13 maggio, ore 19:30 FrameArsArtes – Corso Vittorio Emanuele, 525 – Napoli
In occasione del ’60 anniversario della nascita di Fluxus, FrameArsArtes e Pari&Dispari- Archivio propongono la mostra FLUXUS – ARTE TOTALE.
Il movimento internazionale Fluxus, promosso da George Maciunas, nasce 60 anni fa con il Fluxus Internationale Festspiele Neuester Musik di Wiesbaden del 1962, rivoluzionando il linguaggio dell’arte e fondendo le istanze rinnovatrici culturali, sociali e politiche in un unico fronte d’azione. Fluxus, fortemente influenzato da Marcel Duchamp e dalle idee di John Cage sulla sperimentazione, perviene all’ARTE TOTALE, idea fondamentale per tutta l’arte contemporanea, con la contaminazione della pratica estetica, unendo diversi media e diverse discipline artistiche, performance, musica sperimentale/rumorismo pittura, fotografia, letteratura, teatro, danza.
Gli artisti di tale movimento, abbandonando ogni concezione specialistica e ogni divisione tra le ideologie e le competenze, esprimono la casualità e la quotidianità delle cose: non si basano sullo studio di oggetti privilegiati ma rappresentano l’arte attraverso un concetto ludico, non basato su valori estetici, per concentrarsi su humor e non-sense.
Il Fluxus conosce una diffusione planetaria, dall’America all’Europa, dal Giappone alla Corea e si estende presto anche in Italia. Tra i principali artisti, oltre a quelli presenti nell’esposizione, si ricordano Nam June Paik, Wolf Vostell, Daniel Spoerri, John Cage, Yoko Ono, Silvano Bussotti, Charlotte Moorman, Al Hansen, Geoffrey Hendricks, Joe Jones, Dieter Roth, Takako Saito, Bob Watts.
Il legame tra il movimento Fluxus e l’Italia diventa molto stretto negli anni ’70, quando gli artisti trovano collezionisti, editori, galleristi che con entusiasmo sostengono le loro produzioni. Tra questi spicca la figura di Rosanna Chiessi.
Rosanna Chiessi è stata editrice, gallerista, promotrice di avanguardie artistiche e scopritrice di talenti. In cinquanta anni ha lavorato con artisti di tutto il mondo, in particolare dell’area concettuale italiana, poeti visivi, Azionismo Viennese, Fluxus, arte performativa e movimento Gutai. La collaborazione di Rosanna Chiessi con i principali artisti Fluxus, come un “flusso ininterrotto” scorrerà dai primi anni ’70 in poi.
L’esposizione FLUXUS – ARTE TOTALE, rivolta principalmente all’aspetto grafico, settore in cui Fluxus seppe esprimere proposte di grande novità, contribuendo a fondare la comunicazione visiva contemporanea, intende ricordare la personalità di Rosanna Chiessi e il suo rapporto con gli artisti Fluxus, attraverso una corposa selezione di opere ed edizioni preziose prodotte da lei con la sua casa editrice Pari&Dispari. Le edizioni, i multipli e i reperti delle performance sono spesso la sola concessione all’idea tradizionale di opera d’arte e rappresentano una testimonianza unica e fedele dello spirito di quel tempo e di quella cultura.
In esposizione opere di 11 protagonisti storici del movimento: Eric Andersen, AY-O, Giuseppe Chiari, Philip Corner, Coco Gordon, Dick Higgins, Milan Knizak, Alison Knowles, Jackson Mac Low, Ben Patterson ed Emmett Williams.
From 23 January 2022, an installation by the world-renowned artist Yoko Ono, Ex It, will be on display in the main operations room of the Kaunas branch of the Bank of Lithuania, a famous example of interwar Kaunas architecture. The installation consists of 100 wooden coffins of different sizes with fruit trees growing out of them and a sound recording of living nature. It is a powerful image of the aftermath of war or natural disaster, a metaphor for the resilience of life and the vitality of nature. As the artist herself says, “Ex It is life as a continuation”
This installation is the precursor to Yoko Ono’s major retrospective, which will be presented at Kaunas Picture Gallery in September this year. The exhibition, titled >>>
