Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1998 18:42:38 -0500
From: Barry Smylie <barrysmylie-AT-iname.com>
Subject: Re: 


None of the flux or poste de arte events that i participated in attempted to
appeal to and/or create a mass audience for "advanced" art.  Fluxus always
demanded it's audience to go to it rather than Flux towards the people (at least
in America - the European layman is somewhat more knowledgable and interested in
art and could be expected to appreciate the inexpensive practices of flux and
accept the anti aesthetic).  The advantage to postmod devices (appropriation
included) is a willingness to appeal rather than an agenda to offend.

And, it is difficult and misleading to quote the events of the '60s as exemplary
of "modern".  Impressionism is modern and cubism is modern... the devolutionary
aspect of modernism is that once a movement is founded future practitioners of
modernism cannot refer (other than in a demeaning manor) to past practice.  To use
Fluxus principles in late modern installation would be unoriginal and therefore
anti modern.

George Free wrote:

> On Tue, 17 Nov 1998, Barry Smylie wrote:
>
> >
> > centralization of distribution and marketing in the beaux art market has
> > guaranteed
> > only a few "national" and "international" artists make reasonable profits
> > from their manufacture
> > and most (regional) artists just get by (or not)
> >
> > but
> >
> > what we are missing in the debate is the trade in reproductions at the local
> > shopping center
> >
>         This idea was advanced and excuted in exemplary form by Fluxus
> artists in the 60s and since. It is an idea that can be found among many
> "modernist" artists and artistic movements, which, BTW, do not have the
> characteristics commonly attributed to them by "postmodern" critics.
>
> George
>
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