2018 05 09-06 02. FLUXUS & MACIUNAS`92

In 1992, the exhibition-event Fluxus & Maciunas opened at the Youth Center. The primary organizer of the event was composer Gintaras Sodeika who had earlier organized the Anykščiai Happening Festivals in 1988-1990 at which the idea of Fluxus had already been introduced along with art lover Modestas Saukaitis, who was interested in the genesis of Fluxusand was living in Germany at the time. Rimante Sodeikienė and Arvydas Baltrūnas also contributed towards the exhibition/event. The project was opened and closed with activities, happenings with the main part of the show composed of improvised installations, Fluxusbooks, xeroxed documentary material (with permission to copy gained from Gilbert and Lila Silverman) about the Fluxus movement.

Arvydas Baltrūnas did the opening with videotapes, Gintaras Sodeika was in charge of the opening and closing sound actions. Others who participated in the happennings were: Modestas Saukaitis, Laima Kabelienė, Gražina Michnevičiūtė, Tomas Juzeliūnas, Šarūnas Nakas, Ričardas Kabelis, Vytas Labutis, (who at that time were not yet representatives of Good Bad Things), Leila Kasputienė, Žilvinas Kempinas, Julius Ludavičius, Aidas Bareikis, Sandra Skurvidaitė, et al.

However, perhaps the most important fact is that Modestas Saukaitis had included original Fluxus documents and photographs in the show that he had received from collector Hans Sohm in Stuttgart. It is interesteing that at the time, no one paid much attention to the fact that there were Fluxusoriginals in the show because the most important part was the process itself, the activities, the installations by young artists, sound happenings. However, today we can say that the exhibition was the first semi-official showing of Fluxus artefacts in Lithuania.

The Fluxus & Maciunas exhibition at the Jonas Mekas Visual Arts Center recreates in part a large segment of the documents, posters, etc. that have been kept in the archives of Modestas Saukaitis. According to Gintaras Sodeika, the exhibition of copies of these Fluxusdocuments, posters, photographs, etc. today “may seem naive and useless, however, it seemed important at the time”. Truly, we can say that these artefacts from the 1992 show that were part of the Fluxusprocess have become a part of the Fluxusarchives.

The reconstructed show at the Jonas Mekas Visual Arts Center opening on on May 9, 2018 is the first of a two part Fluxusexhibition that will open a bit earlier than the second part that will be called Fluxus Avilys and will be shown at the Lithuanian National Library. It will open on May 23, 2018 and will present artefacts from the original Fluxuscollection.

Curators of the reconstructed Fluxus & Maciunas ’92exhibition: Modestas Saukaitis, Gintaras Sodeika, Kęstutis Šapoka.

Curator of the AvilysFluxus show: Kęstutis Šapoka

Exhibition presented by: the Jonas Mekas Visual Arts Center

Partners: Lithuanian National Library, Lithuanian Council for Culture.