George Brecht PDF
George Brecht PDF
George Brecht PDF
1 Biography Koan, from the Toward Events Exhibition, Reuben Gallery, NY,
1959. (The wallpaper belongs to the gallery, not the artwork.)
1.1 Early life
control inspector, he took a job as a research chemist for
Brecht was born George Ellis MacDiarmid in New
Johnson & Johnson in 1953, settling in New Jersey. Over
York, August 27, 1926.[8] His father, also George Ellis
the next decade he would register 5 US patents and 2 co-
MacDiarmid,[1] was a professional flautist who had toured
patents [9] including four patents for tampons.[10] His only
with John Philip Sousa’s marching band before settling in
son Eric was born in New Jersey in 1953.
New York to play bass flute for the Metropolitan Opera
Orchestra and the NBC Symphony Orchestra.[7] After his
father’s death from alcoholism when Brecht was 10 years
1.2 Toward events
old,[1] he moved with his mother to Atlantic City, New
Jersey. He enlisted for military service in 1943, and it Whilst working as a chemist (a job that he would keep
was whilst he was stationed near the Black Forest, Ger- until 1965), Brecht became increasingly interested in art
many, 1945, that he changed his surname to 'Brecht' - that explored chance. Initially influenced by Jackson Pol-
'not in reference to Bertolt Brecht, but because he liked lock, and Robert Rauschenberg - Rauschenberg’s exhibi-
the sound of the name'.[7] tion of grass seeds, Growing Painting, 1954, left 'a sig-
After World War II, he studied chemistry at the nificant impression on him' [9] - he began to formulate
Philadelphia College of Pharmacy & Science, finishing ideas about 'chance method schemes’ that would eventu-
his degree and marrying his first wife Marceline in 1951. ally be printed as a booklet by the Something Else Press
After working briefly for Charles Pfizer & Co as a quality as Chance Imagery (1957/66). The work was 'a system-
1
2 2 NEW YORK AVANT-GARDE
atic investigation of the role of chance in the 20th cen- than mine. I needed more space to really work.
tury in the fields of science and avant-garde art... re- But George really came to life in that situa-
veal[ing] his respect for Dadaist and surrealist projects tion..... He became a leader; and immediately
as well as for the more complex aspects of the work he influenced not only me, but everybody else:
of Marcel Duchamp, whom he considered the embodi- Jackson Maclow, Higgins, Hansen. George Se-
ment of the 'artist-researcher'.[11] Artworks in this period gal stopped by, and so did Dine, Whitman and
included bed-sheets stained with ink he called Chance Oldenburg.” Allan Kaprow [17]
Paintings.
Initially writing theatrical scores similar to Kaprow’s ear-
In 1957, Brecht sought out the artist Robert Watts, af-
liest Happenings, Brecht grew increasingly dissatisfied
ter seeing his work exhibited at Douglass College, Rut-
with the didactic nature of these performances. After
gers University, where Watts taught. This led to lunch
performing in one such piece, Cage quipped that he'd
meetings once a week for a number of years at a cafe
“never felt so controlled before.”[18] prompting Brecht
between the university and Brecht’s laboratory.[12] Watts’
to pare the scores down to haiku-like statements, leav-
colleague Allan Kaprow would also regularly attend these
ing space for radically different interpretations each time
informal meetings. Discussions at these lunches would
the piece was performed. Brecht would later refer to
lead directly to the setting up of the Yam Festival, 1962–
Cage as his 'liberator',[1] whilst, in the opinion of some
63, by Watts and Brecht, seen as one of the most im-
critics,[1][19] moving beyond Cage’s notion of music; Cage
portant precursors to Fluxus.[13] The meetings also led to
was still writing scores to be performed. Brecht had re-
both Brecht and Kaprow attending John Cage's class at
placed this with a world permeated with music. “No mat-
The New School for Social Research, New York, often
ter what you do,” he said, “you're always hearing some-
driving down together from New Brunswick.
thing.” [1]
In October 1959, fresh from studying with Cage, Brecht
1.3 John Cage and the New School for So- organised his first one-man show at the Reuben Gallery,
cial Research New York. Called Towards Events: An Arrangement, it
was neither an exhibition of objects or a performance, but
Brecht studied with John Cage between 1958 and somewhere in between.[20] Comprising works that em-
1959,[14] during which time he invented, and then re- phasised time, the works could be manipulated by the
fined, the Event Score [15][16] which would become a cen- viewer in various ways, revealing sounds, smells and tac-
tral feature of Fluxus. Typically, Event Scores are sim- tile textures. One, Case, instructed viewers to unpack the
ple instructions to complete everyday tasks which can be contents and to use them 'in ways appropriate to their na-
performed publicly, privately, or negatively (i.e., deciding ture.' This work would become Valoche (see ), the last
not to perform them at all). These ideas would be taken Fluxus multiple that George Maciunas, the 'Chairman' of
up and expanded upon up by La Monte Young, Yoko Ono Fluxus, would work on before his death 19 years later.[21]
and many other avant-garde artists who passed through
these classes.[17] The two had originally met in 1957 when
Brecht heard that Cage was planning to hunt mushrooms 2 New York avant-garde
in the New Jersey area; he rang him up and invited him to
'stop by and say hello'. Cage accepted, and returned the
invitation; it was whilst Brecht, Kaprow and their fami-
2.1 Flute Solo
lies were visiting his house in Stony Point on the Hudson,
In a frequently retold anecdote used to describe the ori-
that Cage invited them to attend his classes in New York.
gins of one of Brecht’s most personal Event Scores, the
Ironically, musicians found the course far harder than the
artist recalled an incident when his father had a 'nervous
visual artists who had enrolled;
breakdown [22] ' during a rehearsal at the Metropolitan
Opera Orchestra;
“Cage... was very keenly a philosophical
mind, not just an artist’s mind; his sense of '[A] soprano was bugging everybody with
aesthetics was secondary and thought was pri- temper tantrums during rehearsal. At a cer-
mary. He impressed me immediately. So I tain point the orchestra crashed onto a major
thought, well, who cares if he’s a musician and seventh and there was silence for the soprano
I'm a painter. This is unimportant. It’s the and flute cadenza. Nothing happened. The so-
mind that transcends any medium..... prano looked into the orchestra pit and saw that
my father had completely taken apart his flute,
“The rate of attrition was something fierce. down to the last screw. (I used this idea in my
The end result was that there were very few 1962 FLUTE SOLO).' George Brecht [22]
musician types and the event nature of the
class became apparent. George Brecht’s under- Michael Nyman, the interviewer, responded that in
standing of an intimate situation was far greater Brecht’s work “sound-producing instruments [in the
2.4 Other works 3
Event-Scores] have been made mute (the violin, in author, and appreciated Maciunas’ ability at organisation
Solo for Violin Viola Cello or Contrabass, is polished, and design.
not played), and non-sounding instruments, or non-
instruments, for instance a comb (Comb Music, 1962) are 'The people in Fluxus had understood,
made sounding.[1] " Another piece, Solo for Wind Instru- as Brecht explained, that “concert halls, the-
ment, contained the single instruction (putting it down). aters, and art galleries” were “mummifying.”
Later in his life, when asked about his father, Brecht Instead, these artists found themselves “pre-
replied that "[he] gave up music-making in the mid-'30s ferring streets, homes, and railway stations....”
by lying down and not breathing any more on the couch Maciunas recognized a radical political poten-
at 165 W. 82nd Street, where we were living at the time.” tial in all this forthrightly anti-institutional pro-
[1] duction, which was an important source for
his own deep commitment to it. Deploying
his expertise as a professional graphic designer,
2.2 The Yam Festival Maciunas played an important role in project-
ing upon Fluxus whatever coherence it would
As Brecht’s interest in Event Scores began to dominate his later seem to have had.' [27]
output, he started to mail small cards bearing the scores
to various friends “like little enlightenments I wanted to Brecht would remain a prominent member of Fluxus un-
communicate to my friends who would know what to do til Maciunas’ death, 1978. His work was included in each
with them.[23] " of the major Festum Fluxorum performances in Europe,
This method of distribution - soon to become known as 1962–63; in Fluxus 1, 1963, the first Flux Yearbook; as
mail art - would become the basis for the buildup to the part of the various Fluxkits, collecting works by the group
Yam Festival (May backwards), mid 1962-May 1963, or- together; and was a key part of Flux performances and ob-
ganised with Robert Watts. The mailed scores were in- jects right up to the Flux Harpsichord Concert, 1976 and
tended to build anticipation for a month long series of the last Flux Cabinets. An indication of his importance
events held in New York and on George Segal’s farm, within the group is captured in a letter from Maciunas to
New Jersey. Featuring a large cross section of avant- Emmett Williams, April 1963, concerning plans Maci-
garde artists, the festival was based around the idea of unas had been formulating with the marxist intellectual
operating 'as an alternative to the gallery system, produc- Henry Flynt;
ing art that could not be bought'.[24] Artists participating
in the festival included Alison Knowles, Allan Kaprow, 'Bad news! George Brecht wants out of
John Cage, Al Hansen, Ay-O, Dick Higgins, Karlheinz Fluxus, thinks Fluxus is getting too aggres-
Stockhausen and Ray Johnson. The festival has come to sive (this newsletter No.6 [Propaganda through
be seen as a proto-fluxus event, involving many of the pickets and demonstrations, sabotage and dis-
same artists. ruption]). So we will have to compromise, find
One of the recipients of the mail shots (as well as a partic- a midpoint between Flynt, Paik & Brecht (if a
ipant in the festival) was La Monte Young. Young, a mu- midway can be found!) It would be very bad
sician who had arrived in New York September 1960,[25] without Brecht. He is the best man in New
had been asked to guest edit a special edition of Beatitude York (I think)....' [28]
East on avant-garde art, which evolved into the seminal
It was Maciunas who conceived of (and published) Water
compendium, An Anthology Of Chance (see ) Brecht was
Yam, a collection of around 70 of Brecht’s event scores
the first artist listed in the compendium; the graphic de-
packaged in a cardboard box [29] published in Wiesbaden,
signer and publisher of the book was George Maciunas,
April 1963. The first Fluxbox, it was intended to be part
who had been attending the same music classes, although
of a series of boxes containing the complete works of each
by now they were being given by Richard Maxfield.
of the members of Fluxus. In keeping with Maciunas’
principles, the boxes were neither numbered or signed,
2.3 George Maciunas and the beginnings and originally sold for $4.[30]
of Fluxus Many of his other Fluxus multiples involved absurdist
puzzles which were impossible to resolve in a traditional
Fluxus was to grow out of Maciunas’ friendship with the manner (see ).
artists centred on these classes; his conception of Fluxus
was based on LEF, a communist organisation set up in
Russia in the 1920s to help create a new socialist cul- 2.4 Other works
ture [26] Whilst it is unlikely Brecht agreed with Maciunas
politically, he strongly agreed with the notion of the un- Whilst the pieces he made for the Fluxus cooperative
professional status of the artist, the de-privileging of the remain his most famous works, he continued to exhibit
4 3 EUROPE
For the exhibition, the white chair was spot-lit in the mid- Untitled (Blackboard map of Europe) from the series Land Mass
dle of the gallery with a stack of Three Chair Events scores Translocations, 1970, private collection, Vaduz
placed nearby on a window sill. The black chair was
placed in the bathroom, whilst the yellow chair was placed
outside on the street, and was being sat on by Claes Old- ushered in what he described cheerfully as “accelerated
enburg's mother - deep in conversation - when Brecht ar- creative inactivity”.[4]
rived for the private view.[31] A later piece, Chair With A
History, 1966, part of a series Brecht worked on in Rome,
featured a chair with a red book placed on it inviting the
occupier to add 'whatever was happening' as part of an on-
3.2 Land Mass Translocations
going record of the chair’s history [1] (see ). Other series
of works included signs - often readymade - with simple After the shop closed in 1968, Brecht moved to London,
statements on, such as 'Exit' or 'Notice Green' embossed where he formed a new company, 'Brecht and MacDi-
in a red sign next to 'Notice Red' embossed on a green armid', which proposed a number of Land Mass Translo-
one (see ). cations. As a pilot project, Brecht suggested moving the
Isle of Wight westward to Portland Bill.
Brecht started a series called The Book of the Tumbler
on Fire in 1964, and exhibited the first 56 at the Fis-
chback Gallery NY in early 1965, shortly before leaving “One of us (GB) proposed in 1966 that
the US. The pieces consisted of framed collages, made the Arctic ice pack be interchanged with the
of cotton-filled specimen boxes, designed to show “the Antarctic, and in the winter of 1967-8, in Lon-
continuity of unlike things.” [32] Brecht would pursue this don, the idea of moving England closer to the
series for over a decade, with each piece being referred equator presented itself. This intuition was re-
to as a 'page'. inforced by recent scientific studies which have
shown that England is being tilted... at a rate
such that areas of London 15 meters above sea
3 Europe level or less will be submerged in 1500 years
time. Considering that London has been an in-
habited place for at least 2000 years, this is
3.1 The Cedilla That Smiles
not as remote an event as it seems. In this
light, Brecht and MacDiarmid are undertak-
Maciunas’ decision to picket a Stockhausen concert of
ing research into the feasibility of moving land
Originale in August 1964 is often seen as the point at
masses over the surface of the earth..... Move-
which the original, 'heroic' era of Fluxus splintered;[33]
ment of the Isle of Wight would be a pilot
the move seems to have alienated Brecht [34] who, whilst
project for the larger translocation of England.”
not severing relations, left New York in the spring of
George Brecht, B.Sc.[37]
1965 for Europe, despite Cage allegedly spending a whole
evening trying to persuade him to stay.[35]
He arrived in Rome, April 1965; from there he moved to In November 1969, Cornelius Cardew's Scratch Orches-
Villefranche-sur-Mer, France, to start a shop, La Cédille tra (see ) performed Realization of the Journey of the Isle
qui Sourit, (The Cedilla That Smiles), with the French of Wight Westwards by Iceberg to Tokyo Bay, a piece
artist Robert Filliou, another member of Fluxus. The based on Brecht’s Translocations, in London. Other
shop was intended to explore ideas about the 'obtuse re- imagined moves included Cuba moving alongside Miami,
lationship(s) to the institution of language'[36] but instead and Iceland moving next to Spain.
3.4 Last years 5
• Games at the Cedilla; or, The Cedilla Takes Off, by • A complete list of all Brecht’s multiples
George Brecht & Robert Filliou, Something Else
Press, New York, 1967 • Some late multiples by Brecht
• Mr Fluxus, Emmett Williams and Ann Noël, • New York Times obituary
Thames and Hudson, New York, 1998, ISBN 0-
500-97461-6
• Fluxus Experience by Hannah Higgins, University of
7 Notes
California Press, 2002, ISBN 0-520-22867-7
[1] The Johnston Letters, Jill Johnston
• George Brecht: Events - A Heterospective, Verlag
der Buchhandlung Walther Konig, 2005, ISBN 3- [2] George Brecht: Events, A Heterospective, Robinson,
Walter König, p36
88375-979-1
[3] Essay on Brecht by Yve-Alain Bois
• Petra Stegmann. The lunatics are on the loose
… EUROPEAN FLUXUS FESTIVALS 1962-1977, [4] Independent Obituary
DOWN WITH ART!, Potsdam, 2012, ISBN 978-
3-9815579-0-9. [5] Brecht is the first artist mentioned in the text of Lucy Lip-
pard’s seminal history of Conceptual Art, Six years: the
• George Brecht: Museum Ludwig, Yve-Alain Bois, dematerialization of the art object from 1966 to 1972, and
ArtForum, 2006 is referred to as 'Independently and in association with the
fluxus group, Brecht has been making “events” that have
• George Brecht, Philosopher of Fluxus, Jill Johnston, anticipated a stricter “conceptual art” since around 1960.'
The Dance Insider, 2007 Six Years, Lucy R Lippard, University of California Press,
1973, p11
[8] The reference to Halfway, Oregon, was a joke that ap- [30] Price listed in the Fluxus Preview Review, July 1963,
peared in an early fluxus periodical. A more reliable date quoted in the Fluxus Codex, Hendricks, Abrams, 1989
is given in the book accompanying the major retrospective p217
in Cologne, 2005; George Brecht Events; A Heterospec-
tive, p306 Robinson, Walter König [31] A Heterospective, p56
[9] George Brecht Events; A Heterospective, p306 Robinson, [32] A Heterospective, p144
Walter König 2005
[33] The Origins of Culture Stewart Home
[10] He was sufficiently proud of these to include these patents [34] Drama/theatre/performance By Simon Shepherd, Mick
in his Heterospective, Cologne 2005 Wallis, p93
[11] Essay on Brecht by Julia Robinson, for MACBA, [35] Brecht for Beginners, Anna Dezeuze
Barcelona
[36] George Brecht Events; A Heterospective, Robinson, Wal-
[12] An Interview with George Brecht ter König p318
[13] Essay on Fluxus by Michael Corris, MOMA online [37] George Brecht quoted in Land Mass Translocations infor-
mation sheet, 1969
[14] According to Julia Robinson, the first event score was
'Time-table Music', in which the whole class went to [38] Museum of Contemporary Art, Barcelona
Grand Central Station 'where they used train timetables
to create a composition, timing their visual, auditory and [39] Guardian Obituary.
perceptual observations at the site.' see
[40] George Brecht c1977, quoted in A Heterospective, p8
[15] Kristine Stiles & Peter Selz, Theories and Documents of
Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists’ Writings (Sec-
ond Edition, Revised and Expanded by Kristine Stiles)
University of California Press 2012, p. 333
[26] LEF program:'LEF shall agitate art with the ideas of the
commune , opening for art the road to tomorrow.'
8.2 Images
• File:George_Brecht_-_Void_Stone_01.JPG Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/George_Brecht_-_Void_
Stone_01.JPG License: Public domain Contributors: Own work Original artist: Warburg
• File:Koan.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c8/Koan.jpg License: Fair use Contributors:
George Brecht Events; A Heterospective, Robinson, Walter König
Original artist: ?
• File:LandMassTranslocations.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7f/LandMassTranslocations.jpg License: Fair
use Contributors:
George Brecht Events; A Heterospective, Robinson, Walter König
Original artist: ?