George Maciunas

George Maciunas ( Jurgis Mačiūnas ) ( born November 8, 1931 in Kaunas, † May 9, 1978 in Boston ) was an American artist of Lithuanian origin. He was co-founder, theorist and propagandist of the Fluxus movement.

Life

Early years

George Maciunas was established in November 1931 in Kaunas in Lithuania, the second child, in addition to his one year younger sister Nijole, the Lithuanian architects and specialists for e- power stations Alexander M. Maciunas and the Russian Leokadiya Maciunas, a former ballet dancer at the Lithuanian State Opera born. Fearing the Russian army family in 1944 with the retreating German troops Kaunas fled to Germany and settled in Bad Nauheim 1947. His father was working in the American-occupied zone as an electrician at Siemens -Schuckert in Frankfurt am Main. 1946 Maciunas attended the Ernst- Ludwig -Gymnasium in Bad Nauheim and fell through talents in drawing and mathematics teaching on. Two years later, in 1948, the family emigrated to the USA and lived for several years in a Einwandlersiedlung on Long Iceland. His father became a professor at the City College of New York.

Study

From 1949 to 1952 Maciunas studied fine arts, graphic arts and architecture at the Cooper Union School of Art in New York City. This was followed from 1952 to 1954 to study architecture and musicology at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1954 his father died. After the marriage of the sister, the house was sold on Long Iceland and Maciunas and his mother moved to Manhattan in the 86th Street around. From 1955 to 1960 Maciunas extended his studies in art history at New York University, Institute of Fine Arts and worked after graduating as a designer for Knoll Associates in New York. At the same time he attended from 1959 to 1960 the composition class of Richard Maxfield at the New School of Social Research, where he among other things, Acquaintance with La Monte Young, George Brecht, Al Hansen, Dick Higgins, Allan Kaprow, Jackson Mac Low and Yoko Ono made ​​.

The magazine Fluxus

In October 1960, Maciunas met with friends, including the Lithuanian gallery owner Almus Salcius ( Almus gallery) and Jonas Mekas, to establish a Lithuanian Culture Club. Instead, they decided in collaboration with young artists and composers from the environment of John Cage, to publish a magazine. Looking for the perfect name they have agreed in the summer of 1961 in the name Fluxus, after the words " Rysys " for Lithuanian Union and " influx " were perceived is inappropriate. The medical importance of the flowing defecation them at that time was already known that from a conversation with him and Yoko Ono, held in July 1961 shows. He told Ono of the word Fluxus and read her a definition from a dictionary:

Maciunas bought on behalf of the group an IBM typewriter and designed a layout for the magazine. He was thinking of a large format magazine. In December 1961, he had six points, seven planned Yearbooks in January 1962. The planned by magazine was never published because there were economic problems and an involvement of most musicians was not desired. So Maciunas Fluxus produced only I, completed in 1964, as well as other productions to the year 1975.

Almus AG Gallery and Gallery

At another meeting in November 1960, she decided to expand the Almus gallery. A month later, in December 1960 found that both the appropriate offices at 925 Madison Avenue, near the Park -Bernet Galleries. The gallery was AG Gallery, for Almus and George, named. For the maintenance of the artists exhibited there should mitaufkommen, Maciunas also tried through trade with rare musical instruments, books and delicacies to finance the gallery. Due to the low feed, the gallery was closed in August 1961 after until July concerts in addition to first exhibitions and performances under the title Musica Nova et Antiqva was no longer guaranteed the financing of March. George Maciunas changes its name from Jurgis to George.

First Fluxus events

In 1961 Maciunas took in New York with George Brecht, Al Hansen, Allan Kaprow and the first happenings in part and produced in September of the same year layouts for La Monte Young An Anthology. In the fall of Maciunas went with his mother to Wiesbaden, where he worked as a civilian employee and graphic artist in the U.S. Air Force. In Wiesbaden, he founded the Fluxus group and made ​​the acquaintance of the most important artists of the avant-garde in Germany and France.

In September 1962, the concert series was followed by Fluxus - International Festival of Very New Music consisting of 14 performances in the auditorium of the Municipal Museum in Wiesbaden, which are regarded as the first Fluxus events. The main participants in addition to Maciunas, Nam June Paik, Dick Higgins, Wolf Vostell, Emmett Williams and the composers Karlheinz Stockhausen and John Cage. Then found six concerts in St. Nicholas Church in Copenhagen and seven concerts at the Centre des Artistes American place in Paris. In February 1963, he published the Fluxus Manifesto for the Fluxus Festival Festum Fluxorum FLUXUS, which was organized by Joseph Beuys in the auditorium of the Dusseldorf Art Academy.

Maciunas wrote numerous documentaries and collected artifacts and associated with the Fluxus art. Important parts of which are located in the Stuttgart State Gallery and the Museum Wiesbaden.

Later years

After him, the U.S. Army had dismissed because of frequent illness, he returned in September 1963 to New York. As of 1965, the events receded into the background, but instead made ​​numerous Maciunas Fluxus multiples and publications to. In 1966, Maciunas founded the Fluxhouse Cooperative Building Project, a nonprofit cooperative to finance lofts in SoHo. He bought this several houses in New York to help with the goal of artists, filmmakers and dancers to provide adequate working and living space.

1975, after he was attacked by a craftsman, where he lost an eye, he moved to New Marlborough, Massachusetts. In the summer of 1977, Maciunas became ill with cancer. In February 1978, he married the poet Billie Hutching. A month later, he died on May 9 at University Hospital in Boston. The funeral took place on 11 May 1978 on the Fresh Pond Crematorium, Queens in New York.

Solo Exhibitions

Works (selection)

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