Eight Days A Week 2002 : Beniamin Patterson Fluxus' Artist Liverpool Biennial 2002

performances at Liverpool Community College A public lecture at Liverpool John Moores University Integrated project and lecture at University of Central Lancashire, Preston.

A project organised by Pete Clarke, Colin Fallows, Liverpool Art School and Geoff Molyneux, Liverpool City College to present work, a lecture programme and performance by international renowned `Fluxus' artist Benjamin Patterson in October & November 2002. Patterson is a classically trained musician from the USA who is now based in Wiesbaden. The Collaborative project involving music, performing and visual art students introduced Ben Patterson's work for the first time to Britain included performances at Liverpool Community College, a public lecture at Liverpool John Moores University and integrated project and lecture at University of Central Lancashire, Preston. The two day seminar workshop, visiting lectures and `master class' at Uclan explored the social, cultural and historical influences of `Fluxus' Art and its influence on contemporary art, music and the performing arts, followed by a performance and video screening of his work to establish the relevance of `Fluxus' to contemporary practice.This was part of an ongoing exchange programme establishing artist's networks and initiatives in the North West of England and in a broader European context.

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`Remembering Utopia', Salerno, Italy 2002.
`Through this dialogic process a body of painting has emerged which offers us, not a series of composite impressions of the urban landscape, but a kind of visual meditation on the city, an amalgam of differing perspectives. The paintings raise questions about how we picture the world, challenging the notion of a single fixed authorial point of view. They also interrogate the practice of painting itself through the methodology of the collaborative approach - the process of applying paint to canvas becoming a discursive act.'
From `Collaboration' catalogue essay by Bryan Biggs, Director of Arts, Bluecoat Arts Centre, Liverpool 2000. ______________________________________________________________________________
Fluxus
Fluxus (from "to flow") is an art movement noted for the blending of different artistic disciplines, primarily visual art but also music and literature. Fluxus was loosely organized in 1962 by George Maciunas (1931-78), a Lithuanian-American artist who had moved to Germany to escape his creditors. Besides America and Europe, Fluxus also took root in Japan.

Among its members were Joseph Beuys, Dick Higgins, Nam June Paik and Yoko Ono who explored media ranging from performance art to poetry to experimental music to film. They took the stance of opposition to the ideas of tradition and professionalism in the arts of their time, the Fluxus group shifted the emphasis from what an artist makes to the artist's personality, actions, and opinions. Throughout the 1960s and '70s (their most active period) they staged "action" events, engaged in politics and public speaking, and produced sculptural works featuring unconventional materials. Their radically untraditional works included, for example, the video art of Nam June Paik and the performance art of Beuys. The often playful style of Fluxus artists led to their being considered by some little more than a group of pranksters in their early years. Fluxus has also been compared to Dada and aspects of Pop Art and is seen as the starting point of mail art.

Most notorious are the Fluxus performance pieces or "Event Scores" such as George Brecht's Drip Music. Fluxus artists differentiate Event Scores from "happenings" which they called Flux Events. Whereas Happenings were meant to blur the lines between performer and audience, performance and reality, Fluxus performances were sometimes one-liners and sight gags. The performances sought to elevate the banal and dissemble the high culture of serious music and art.

Marcel Duchamp and John Cage were highly influential to Fluxus. Many artists have associated themselves with Fluxus over the years, including:

Arman. Ay-O. César Baldaccini (César) . Joseph Beuys . George Brecht . John Cage . Giuseppe Chiari . Philip Corner . Robert Filliou . Henry Flynt . Ken Friedman. Al Hansen . Geoffrey Hendricks . Dick Higgins. Ruud Janssen. Ray Johnson . Alison Knowles . Jackson Mac Low . George Maciunas . Gustav Metzger . Larry Miller . Yoko Ono . Genesis P-Orridge . Nam June Paik . Benianmin Patterson . Dieter Roth . Wim T. Schippers . Carolee Schneemann . Litsa Spathi . Daniel Spoerri . Yasunao Tone . * Ben Vautier . Wolf Vostell . Yoshi Wada . Emmett Williams. La Monte Young.

(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.) ____________________________________________________________________________________________

www.eightdaysaweek.org.uk

web site: Tony Knox