Making salad is art when the dressing is ‘Fluxus’

Thursday, April 6, 2006 | 6:51 a.m.

On Friday night artist Alison Knowles will make a salad. She will remove one piece of clothing. Very slowly. And she will play an instrument using an orange.

Each "event" - there are 12 in all - has its own instructions that Knowles is to interpret and perform before a small audience while her daughter delivers a lecture titled "The Multiple Intelligences of Fluxus."

Why?

The organizers behind Fluxus Vegas say it's a time to celebrate the ordinary, stop the clock and relish in the simplicity of everyday life. The two-day festival will be at UNLV.

Fluxus is a movement that started in the '60s, bringing artists together to focus on the process of art, rather than the final product as a commodity. Founded by George Maciunas, other artists associated with Fluxus include Yoko Ono, John Cage, Knowles and her late husband, Dick Higgins.

In a 1979 article, Higgins writes that "coffee cups can be more beautiful than sculptures" and "the sloshing of my foot in my wet boot sounds more beautiful than fancy organ music."

John Paul Ricco, assistant professor of art history and art theory at UNLV, said Fluxus has to do with a sense that "midcentury American, consumer-driven, ever-involved-with-a-spectacle culture required an intervention."

Ricco organized Fluxus Vegas with UNLV sculpture professor Robert Wysocki. He will also participate in a public conversation on Fluxus with Knowles and her daughter, Hannah Higgins.

Recently Ricco took a few minutes to talk with the Las Vegas Sun.

One of the great things about Fluxus is that it really goes so far to blur that boundary. The radical impulse of Fluxus is that anything is art and anybody can be an artist.

It really all began with (abstract painter Marcel) Duchamp when he took a bathroom urinal, put it on its side and pushed the limits. Where does art end? Where does everyday begin?

How does Fluxus differ from performance art?

The difference between Fluxus and performance art would be the engagement with the notion of the event. Performance art would involve a prewritten script where you'd set the perimeters.

And there really is no perimeter in Fluxus?

They're so minimal in instruction that they can be taken any number of ways.

So "Make a Salad" performances could be construed as variations on a theme?

Yes. In one "Make a Salad," Alison cuts up various ingredients to make a salad. She'll make one salad, make another salad (and then) make a number of salads to give to the audience.

She's done it on a huge scale where you have dozens of people making a salad and piles of carrots.

Objects also have an important role?

Fluxus teaches us that we can have a relationship to objects and things that are based upon a simple active engagement with the object. A simple, plain, unadorned kind of experience.

It's very much about ourselves and our relation with things in this world and achieves a sense that there is an aesthetic to an existence. It puts forth the notion that one might live one's life as a work of art or as a series of artful activities.

Audience reaction?

Some of the pieces are very playful, so you can get a humorous response. Some are very meditative. In "Nivea Cream" ... she scoops out a big blob and massages her hands in front of a microphone.

The experience is so minimal that you become entranced.

Has it seen its zenith?

It was much bigger in the '60s, when you had many of the artists engaged in the activities. It's very hard to make a living doing Fluxus.

Fluxus Vegas events are free. Friday's lecture and performance will be from 6 to 8 p.m. in Room A-108 of the Classroom Building Complex at UNLV. Saturday's public conversation will be at 3 p.m. in the same room.