Maciunas' "Learning Machines"
From Art History to a Chronology of Fluxus

Kunstbibliothek SMB, Berlin / Oct. 31, 2003 to Jan. 11, 2004
ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe / Oct. 30, 2004 to Feb. 27, 2005
Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest / Nov. 2 to Dec. 8, 2006
Museum moderner Kunst Stif. Ludwig, Vienna / Dec. 14, 2006 to Febr. 26, 2007

The art of networked thought involves simplifying complexity and creating openings for new ideas. This way of thinking, which remains constant in all spheres of knowledge, also defines artistic practice. The exhibition focuses around three dozen diagrams of history, designed by the Fluxus initiator George Maciunas, between 1953 and 1973, as a visualization of chronological causality. If everything developed according to Maciunas' theory, there would not be any real understanding of the evolution of art without charts. His graphic work, a third of which is being presented to the public for the first time, attempts in various ways to draw a picture of history which is assembled using dates and facts, lines and vectors. The result appears to be scientific and is at the same time artistically fascinating. It not only provides insight into formerly unknown relationships between dates and historical events; entirely new kinds of knowledge transfer are also produced. The diagram as a system of order helps us in our contemplation and explanation of the past. A network of tightly interwoven political, cultural-historical, economic, poetic, and aesthetic elements produces a wealth of manifold associations and allusions. Maciunas' charts can be read like a cultural timetable, which also outline the conditions of the Fluxus movement. His universal history serves as a model for the Fluxus chronology which then itself calls for universal significance. On the basis of Maciunas' maps, it is possible to come up with a clear definition of those who belong to the hard core of Fluxus and those who are seen to be excluded members. The visual display thus takes on the characteristics of a show trial. In this way, the writing of history and pictorial politics is questioned anew.

A catalogue has been published for the exhibition by Vice Versa Verlag, Berlin. 128 pages with 132 b/w illustrations, mostly full-page, and 2 posters. Hard cover, 31.2 x 24 cm, ISBN 3-932809-39-4, € 20.

curator: Astrit Schmidt-Burkhardt