George Maciunas
«Poster for ‘Fluxusfestspiele’»

Placard for the first Fluxus event in Europe. During the music festival, which was organized by George Maciunas and subsequently travelled to Amsterdam, London, Copenhagen, Paris, Düsseldorf, Stockholm and other cities, ‘Fluxus’ took shape as an international group and became known as an inter-media movement whose activities often provoked outrage. The full title ‘Internationale Festspiele Neuester Musik’ (‘International Festival of Newest Music’) points to the origins of the movement in New Music. ‘Fluxus’ was originally chosen merely as the name of a journal (which never appeared). Artists who participated in the 14 concerts making up the Wiesbaden festival were George Maciunas, Nam June Paik, Benjamin Patterson, Emmet Williams, Arthur Koepcke, Wolf Vostell, and Robert Filliou. In the course of the tour they were joined by Thomas Schmit, Willem de Ridder, Jackson McLow, Daniel Spoerri, Bengt af Klintberg, Frank Trowbridge and Joseph Beuys. ‘Fluxus’ events were staged in New York from 1964 onwards, where Maciunas also began to publish the Fluxus editions of objects, boxes, films and books.