The Artwork in Flux, a Live Q&A

For the second discussion in this fall’s series “In Conversation,” join Natilee Harren, assistant professor of art history at the University of Houston School of Art, and Meredith Malone, associate curator at the Kemper Art Museum, for a talk about Fluxus, the international avant-garde art movement founded in 1962 with outposts in Europe, Japan, and the United States. The group is perhaps best known for its production of game-like kits called Fluxboxes, multiples in unlimited edition that were assembled beginning in the early 1960s. In our present moment of social isolation and economic uncertainty, Fluxus multiples—portable, interactive, transformable, and affordable—offer a compelling model for rethinking accepted modes of artistic subjectivity, production, and distribution.

This discussion will bring to life the original context of the Fluxboxes—Pop art and the multiples boom of the mid-1960s—reanimating the political and aesthetic stakes of these objects while highlighting the signal contributions of Fluxus affiliates, including George Brecht, Alison Knowles, George Maciunas, and Daniel Spoerri, among many others.

The conversation is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Multiplied: Edition MAT and the Transformable Work of Art, 1959-1965. Questions are encouraged and will be answered live.

The program is free, but registration is required.