Fluxus was declared dead when its founder George Maciunas died in 1978. But you try telling that to the people of Vilnius. Next month, the anarchistic ideas of Fluxus will be turned into practice in the Lithuanian capital. Now the movement's central ethos, that all life is art, is at the heart of the city's future plans.
In 1977, Fluxus mail artist Jerry Dreva daubed on a Milwaukee high school the slogan "art only exists beyond the confines of acceptable behaviour". He later explained: "What I'm trying to do is point to a future when art will no longer exist as a category separate from life."
He was echoing Joseph Beuys, who in the statement for his Social Organism (1973) concept, stated: "Only art is capable of dismantling the repressive effects of a senile social system that continues to totter along the deathline: to dismantle in order to build a social organism as a work of art... every human being is an artist..."
As Stewart Home noted, Fluxus and its less humorous, anti-art relative Dada were the real harbingers of punk, more so than King Mob and the Situationist International.
Both punk and Fluxus seemingly died in 1978 when punk sold out to the mainstream and George Maciunas passed away.
But while punk is embodied in new forms, the flow of Fluxus has become a gush. The mixed media mash-ups, pioneered by Fluxus in the 1960s, have escalated and fused with freeform internet communication and its propensity for quick-fire art-life statements, resulting in a fresh Fluxus generation.
In Lithuania, the birthplace of Maciunas and perhaps the most liberated of the post-communist countries, Fluxus ideas are not only embraced by an artists' community, they form the axis of the capital's future development blueprint.
Vilnius will be next year's European Capital of Culture and the government's Culture Live programme mission is "to create a new European cultural experience in which culture is a part of modern life and each individual is its creator... to elevate culture as a virtue in modern society and as the driving force in city development."
The programme "has been kindled by Fluxus movement ideas", where "art is in constant flux, a continuous flow which draws everyone in".
Fluxus is at its most potent a short walk from the centre of Vilnius, in the self-proclaimed Republic of Uzupis, with its lexicon of street sculptures and artists' courtyards, plus a witty anti-totalitarian bill of rights . The anarcho-bohemian enclave celebrated the 10th anniversary of its independence on April Fools' Day last year by giving its angel of freedom sculpture a wash.
As the oldest and grandest quarter of verdant Vilnius, it's easy for any romantic (and Uzupis is full of them) to imagine they are in fin de siecle Paris. Hence the republic's Monmartre (sic) Convention, the inaugural July-long homecoming Fluxus festival when artists from countries such as Finland, Denmark, Norway, Georgia, Switzerland, Japan and neighbouring Latvia join Lithuanians in creating "Fluxus theatre, sailing and flying sculptures, pictures carried by kites and hot air balloons, a giant ribbon of ornaments... and Finnish tango". It's a taster for next year's convention, which will last all summer.
The Fluxus dream didn't die with Maciunas: it is now (sur)reality.
