History, Historiography and Legacy

Abstract

This essay examines issues that typify Fluxus work and thinking through reflections on historiography, hermeneutics and historicism. Because Fluxus actively engenders possibilities and futures, it activates the question of legacy. Generating futures entails a dialog with the past. This dialog with history requires historiography, articulate reflection on how we make and write history — and articulate reflection on how we understand it. While such an understanding is necessary for historians who seek to understand the past of a phenomenon such as Fluxus, it was of central import to the artists, architects, composers and designers who created Fluxus and to those who desire to actively continue the Fluxus traditions. This conversation transcends the art world to embrace larger social and cultural aspirations. This key to understanding Fluxus has often been overlooked, and it partly explains the failure of mainstream art historians to understand Fluxus. The first developments that became Fluxus reveal a community of artists, architects, composers and designers with an articulate awareness of history in all its many dimensions. Throughout its history, Fluxus has continued this multidimensional dialog between past, present and future.