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152-688: His father, Alexander M. Maciunas, was a Lithuanian architect and engineer who had trained in Berlin, and his mother, Leokadija, was a Russian-born dancer from Tiflis affiliated with the Lithuanian National Opera and, later, Aleksandr Kerensky 's private secretary, helping him complete his memoirs. After fleeing Lithuania to avoid being arrested by the advancing Red Army in 1944, and living briefly in Bad Nauheim , Frankfurt , Germany, initially under Nazi control and then under

304-408: A countercultural sentiment to the value of art and the modes of its experience –distinctly achieved by its commitment to collectivism and to decommodifying and deaestheticizing art. Its aesthetic practitioners, valuing originality over imitating overworked forms, reconceptualized the art object and the nature of performance through musical 'concerts', 'olympic' games, and publications. By undermining

456-520: A prepared piano and Merce Cunningham danced. All these things took place at the same time, among the audience rather than on a stage. Cage credited a collaborative close reading of Antonin Artaud 's The Theatre and Its Double with M.C. Richards and David Tudor as the impetus for the event. Happenings flourished in New York City in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Key contributors to

608-483: A "captive" audience was entangled in string emanating from a vacuum cleaner as it made its rounds (similar to Kaprow's "A Spring Happening", where he used a power lawnmower and huge electric fan to similar effect); Zen Rock Festival in which the central icon was a huge rock with which the audience interacted in unpredictable ways; Black on Black held in the Edmonton Art Gallery; and "Pipe Dream," set in

760-535: A European-style plan by Russian authorities (Sololaki, Rustaveli Avenue, Vera, etc.) have a Western appearance, with a mix of styles popular in Europe at the time: Beaux Arts, Orientalist, and various period revival styles. Tbilisi is most notable for its abundance of Art Nouveau buildings and details (common in Sololaki and Chughureti), which flourished from the mid-1890s to through the end of Russian rule. Art Nouveau

912-409: A collective newspaper, a Flux Housing Cooperative and frequently revised lists of incorporated Fluxus "workers". The shop, like all his business ventures, was notoriously unsuccessful, however. In a 1978 interview with Larry Miller shortly before his death, Maciunas estimated spending 'about $ 50,000' on Fluxus projects over the years that would never recoup their investment. Larry Miller, "May I ask

1064-411: A fireman wearing a simple costume of white pants and T-shirt with a poncholike cloak and a Smokey Stoverish fireman's helmet. Bill, the 'star' in a tall hat and black overcoat, walked back and forth across the stage with great wooden gestures. Yvonne sat on the floor by a suspended fire engine. She was a blind woman with tin-foil covered glasses and cup. Sylvia played a radio and pulled on hanging junk. For

1216-517: A form of "semi-independence" and did not lose its statehood, but Tbilisi would be strongly influenced by the Mongols for the next century, both politically and culturally. In the 1320s, the Mongols retreated from Georgia, and Tbilisi became the capital of an independent Georgian state, once again. However, an outbreak of the Black Death struck the city in 1366. Between the late 14th century and

1368-601: A form similar to or the same as their names for the country of Georgia ( Гуьржех Gürƶex ) as does the historical Kabardian name ( Курджы Kwrdžə ), while Abkhaz Қарҭ ( Ķarţ ) is from the Mingrelian ქართი ( Karti ). Archaeologists discovered evidence of continuous habitation of the Tbilisi suburb of Dighomi since the early Bronze Age, and stone artifacts dating to the Paleolithic age. During

1520-665: A graphic artist at the New York studio of graphic designer and former Look art director Jack Marshad. He established the official Fluxus Headquarters at 359 Canal Street in New York City and proceeded to make Fluxus into a sort of multinational corporation, replete with "a complex amalgam of Fluxus Products from the FluxShop and the Flux Mail-Order Catalogue and Warehouse, Fluxus copyright protection,

1672-678: A happening by performing her Cut Piece at the Sogetsu Art Center . She walked onto the stage draped in fabric, presented the audience with a pair of scissors, and instructed the audience to cut the fabric away gradually until the performer decided they should stop. This piece was presented again in 1966 at the Destruction in Art Symposium in London, this time allowing the cutting away of her street cloths. In Belgium ,

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1824-487: A history of the avant-garde. The first appeared in 1966, with Fluxus as the focal point. He also began a correspondence with Raoul Hausmann , an original member of Berlin Dada , who advised him to stop using the term "neo-dada" and concentrate instead on "Fluxus" to describe the nascent movement. Duke University Professor Kristine Stiles has discussed Fluxus as part of a movement towards global humanism achieved through

1976-469: A housing crisis after World War II. Entire neighborhoods (Saburtalo, Dighomi) appeared on the outskirts of the city in a matter of decades, built with advances in mass-production technology. Georgian architects produced some of the Soviet Union's most interesting architectural achievements, including Tbilisi's 1975 Ministry of Roads and the 1984 Wedding Palace . Since the collapse of the Soviet Union,

2128-476: A kind of hierarchy, because most of them have lost their distinctive topographic limits. The natural first level of subdivision of the city is into the right and left banks of the Mtkvari river. The names of the oldest neighborhoods go back to the early Middle Ages and sometimes pose a great linguistic interest. The newest whole-built developments bear chiefly residential marketing names. In 19th-century Tbilisi,

2280-507: A limited scope of affairs. This subdivision was established under Soviet rule in the 1930s, following the general subdivision of the Soviet Union . After Georgia regained independence, the raion system was modified and reshuffled. According to the latest revision, Tbilisi raions include: Most of the raions are named after historic quarters of the city. The citizens of Tbilisi widely recognize an informal system of smaller historic neighborhoods. Such neighborhoods are several, however, constituting

2432-575: A location of the Transcaucasus interim government which established, in the spring of 1918, the short-lived independent Transcaucasian Federation with the capital in Tbilisi. At this time, Tbilisi had roughly the same number of Armenians as Georgians, with Russians being the third largest ethnic group. It was in the former Viceroy of the Caucasus's palace where the independence of three Transcaucasus nations – Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan –

2584-799: A men's washroom with an all-female "cast". In Australia , the Yellow House Artist Collective in Sydney housed 24-hour happenings throughout the early 1970s. Behind the Iron Curtain in Poland , artist and theater director Tadeusz Kantor staged the first happenings beginning in 1965. In the second half of 1970s painter and performer Krzysztof Jung ran the Repassage gallery, which promoted performance art in Poland. Also in

2736-436: A modular prefabricated mass-housing system known as Fluxhouse. Developed as an improved design to Soviet Block Housing (or Khrushchyovka ), Fluxhouse was conceived in consideration to efficiency of materials, transportation, and labor to produce a cost and time effective mass-produced housing system. As an efficient modular system intended for factory production, this eco-friendly and sustainable design can be adapted to construct

2888-400: A moment these proper manners and partake wholly in the real nature of the art and life. It is a rough and sudden act, where one often feels "dirty", and dirt, we might begin to realize, is also organic and fertile, and everything including the visitors can grow a little into such circumstances." Happenings have no plot or philosophy, but rather are materialized in an improvisatory fashion. There

3040-531: A new, modern happening. Starting around 2010, a world-wide group called The Order of the Third Bird started creating flashmob style art appreciation happenings. In 2018 the Prague -based performance and poetics collective OBJECT:PARADISE was established by writers Tyko Say and Jeff Milton. The collective has since aimed to make poetry readings more similar to language happenings which involve

3192-418: A number of works by other members of the international avant-garde . One of the most notorious events performed at Wiesbaden was Maciunas' interpretation of Philip Corner 's Piano Activities , the score of which asked a group of people to 'play', 'scratch or rub' and 'strike soundboard, pins, lid or drag various objects across them.' In Maciunas' interpretation, with the help of Higgins, Williams and others,

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3344-476: A review of a Fluxus exhibition; Maciunas was fascinating, talented, and by all accounts a nightmare. Like André Breton , godfather of the surrealist movement , Maciunas would invite artists, composers and even philosophers to take part in activities. He would charm them, boss them around for years, then perform summary excommunications, banishing those who displeased him..... Maciunas would take against individuals for no good reason – composer Karlheinz Stockhausen

3496-510: A series of mail art event scores and performances by John Cage, Allan Kaprow , Alison Knowles , Ay-O , and Dick Higgins. All of these artists and more eventually became associated with Fluxus, either through their collaboration on multiples, inclusion in anthologies, or participation in Fluxus concerts'. Other key influences noted by Maciunas included the Happenings that had occurred at

3648-616: A series of loft buildings to sell to artists as working and living spaces. Although it was illegal to sell the units publicly without first filing a full-disclosure prospectus with the New York State Attorney General, Maciunas ignored the legal requirements, beginning a series of increasingly bizarre run-ins with the Attorney General of New York . Maciunas began wearing disguises and going out only at night. Strategies included sending postcards from around

3800-623: A severe beating, allegedly by 'Mafia thugs', which left him with 4 broken ribs, a deflated lung, 36 stitches in his head and blind in one eye. He left New York shortly after, to attempt to start a Fluxus-oriented arts centre in a dilapidated mansion and stud farm in New Marlborough , Massachusetts . The Fluxhouse cooperatives are often cited as playing a major role in regenerating and gentrifying SoHo. SoHo has since been an enclave in which contemporary art movements have developed and flourished. Perpetually sick, Maciunas developed cancer of

3952-437: A single family home, a mid-rise building, or a neighborhood community with the multiplication or subtraction of units. Maciunas conceived this design as a dwelling which combines the low-cost advantages of standardization with the freedom of customization. As an urban planner, Maciunas is credited as the "Father of SoHo " for developing dilapidated loft buildings and gentrifying the neighborhood with artists cooperatives known as

4104-532: A stupid question? Why didn't it pay off? Because isn't part of the idea that it's low cost and multiple distribution..." GM; "No one was buying it, in those days. We opened up a store on Canal Street , what was it, 1964, and we had it open almost all year. We didn't make one sale in that whole year... We did not even sell a 50 cent item, a postage stamp sheet... you could buy V TRE papers for a quarter, you could buy George Brecht 's puzzles for one dollar, Fluxus yearboxes for twenty dollars." During this time, Maciunas

4256-545: A typical year. The absolute minimum recorded temperature is −24.4 °C (−11.9 °F) in January 1883 and the absolute maximum is 42.0 °C (107.6 °F) on 17 July 1882. Average annual precipitation is 511.5 mm (20.1 in). May is the wettest month (averaging 84.0 mm (3.3 in) of precipitation) while January is the driest (averaging 16.4 mm (0.6 in) of precipitation). Snow falls on average 15–25 days per year. The surrounding mountains often trap

4408-459: A variation of Tiflis . On 20 September 2006, the Georgian parliament held a ceremony celebrating the 70th anniversary of the renaming. Some of the traditional names of Tbilisi in other languages of the region have different roots. The Ossetian name Калак ( Kalak ) derives from the Georgian word ქალაქი ( kalaki ) meaning simply city. Chechen and Ingush names for the city use

4560-402: A variety of interdisciplinary acts and performances occurring at the same time. Kaprow explains that happenings are not a new style, but a moral act, a human stand of great urgency, whose professional status as art is less critical than their certainty as an ultimate existential commitment. He argues that once artists have been recognized and paid, they also surrender to the confinement, rather

4712-406: A view that art should not-be something rarefied or commercial, and a firm commitment to blurring the distinctions between art and life. Maciunas' lifelong interest in diagrams made him chart the political, cultural and social history as well as art history and the chronology of Fluxus. In 1963, Maciunas composed the first Fluxus Manifesto , (see above), which called upon its readers to: ...purge

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4864-404: Is "a purposefully composed form of theatre in which diverse alogical elements, including nonmatrixed performing, are organized in a compartmented structure". However, Canadian theatre critic and playwright Gary Botting , who himself had "constructed" several happenings, wrote in 1972: "Happenings abandoned the matrix of story and plot for the equally complex matrix of incident and event." Kaprow

5016-440: Is a latin word Maciunas dug up. I never studied Latin. If it hadn't been for Maciunas nobody might have ever called it anything. We would all have gone our own ways, like the man crossing his street with his umbrella, and a woman walking a dog in another direction. We would have gone our own ways and done our own things: the only reference point for any of this bunch of people who liked each other's works, and each other, more or less,

5168-496: Is a performance, event, or situation art , usually as performance art . The term was first used by Allan Kaprow during the 1950s to describe a range of art-related events. Allan Kaprow first coined the term "happening" in the spring of 1959 at an art picnic at George Segal 's farm to describe the art pieces being performed. The first appearance in print about one was in Kaprow's famous "Legacy of Jackson Pollock " essay that

5320-499: Is commonly cited as the first happening, although that distinction is sometimes given to a 1952 performance of Theater Piece No. 1 at Black Mountain College by John Cage , one of Kaprow's teachers in the mid-1950s. Cage stood reading from a ladder, Charles Olson read from another ladder, Robert Rauschenberg showed some of his paintings and played wax cylinders of Édith Piaf on an Edison horn recorder, David Tudor performed on

5472-634: Is finally free to be Fluxus, it is becoming that something/nothing with which George should be happy. The life of George Maciunas is subject of a documentary film by the Manhattan-based artist and independent filmmaker Jeffrey Perkins who met Maciunas in 1966. It is made out of Maciunas' friends voices, material from 44 interviews that had been gathered by Perkins since 2010 on his travels to Europe, America and Japan. An oratorio loosely based on Maciunas and titled Machunas premiered in August 2005 in

5624-435: Is no direction thus the outcome is unpredictable. "It is generated in action by a headful of ideas...and it frequently has words but they may or may not make literal sense. If they do, their meaning is not representational of what the whole element conveys. Hence they carry a brief, detached quality. If they do not make sense, then they are acknowledgement of the sound of the word rather than the meaning conveyed by it." Due to

5776-486: Is reflected in its architecture, which is a mix of medieval , neoclassical , Beaux Arts , Art Nouveau , Stalinist , and Modern structures. Historically, Tbilisi has been home to people of multiple cultural, ethnic, and religious backgrounds, though its population is overwhelmingly Eastern Orthodox Christian . Notable tourist destinations include cathedrals Sameba and Sioni , Freedom Square , Rustaveli Avenue and Agmashenebeli Avenue , medieval Narikala Fortress ,

5928-406: Is replaced with either a hawk or other small birds of prey in the legend). The king's falcon allegedly caught or injured a pheasant during the hunt, after which both birds fell into a nearby hot spring and died from burns. King Vakhtang became so impressed with the hot springs that he decided to clear the forest and build a city on the location. King Dachi of Iberia ( r.  522–534 ),

6080-865: Is the Dinamo Arena (55,000 seats) and the second-largest is the Mikheil Meskhi Stadium (24,680 seats). The Sports Palace , which usually hosts basketball games with high attendance and tennis tournaments, can seat about 11,000 people. Vere Basketball Hall is a smaller indoor sports arena with a seating capacity of 2,500. Football is the most popular sport in Tbilisi, followed by rugby and basketball . Other popular sports include wrestling , tennis , swimming , and water polo . It has several professional football and rugby teams, as well as wrestling clubs. U.S. National Basketball Association players Zaza Pachulia and Nikoloz Tskitishvili are Tbilisi natives. Outside of professional sports,

6232-532: Is the capital and largest city of Georgia , lying on the banks of the Kura River with around 1.2 million inhabitants, which is about a third of the country's population. Tbilisi was founded in the fifth century AD by Vakhtang I of Iberia . Since then, the city has served as the capital of various Georgian kingdoms and republics. Between 1801 and 1917, then part of the Russian Empire , Tiflis

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6384-675: Is the Russian Quarter, the seat of the officials and of the larger business firms. This is adjoined on the south by the Armenian and Persian Bazaars. Tbilisi is located in the South Caucasus at 41° 43' North and 44° 47' East. The city lies in Eastern Georgia on both banks of the Kura River (locally known as Mtkvari). The elevation of the city ranges from 380–770 metres above sea level (1,250–2,530 ft) and has

6536-574: The Ak Koyunlu tribesmen of Uzun Hassan . As early as the 1510s, Tbilisi (and the kingdoms of Kartli and Kakheti ) were made vassal territories of Safavid Iran . In 1522, Tbilisi was garrisoned for the first time by a large Safavid force. Following the death of king ( shah ) Ismail I (r. 1501–1524), king David X of Kartli expelled the Iranians. During this period, many parts of Tbilisi were reconstructed and rebuilt. The four campaigns of

6688-611: The Armenian Apostolic Church have significant followings as well. A minority of the population (around 1.5%) practises Islam (mainly Shia Islam ), while about 0.1% of Tbilisi's population practises Judaism . Also, a Roman Catholic church and the Yazidi Sultan Ezid Temple can be found in the city. Until the beginning of the 19th century, sports such as horse-riding ( polo in particular), wrestling , boxing , and marksmanship were

6840-576: The Avchala District to River Lochini. The part of the city which lies on the right side of the river, though, is built along the foothills of the Trialeti Range , the slopes of which in many cases descend all the way to the edges of the river. The mountains, therefore, are a significant barrier to urban development on its right bank. This type of a geographic environment creates pockets of very densely developed areas, while other parts of

6992-837: The Black Mountain College involving Robert Rauschenberg , John Cage, David Tudor , Merce Cunningham , and others; the Nouveaux Réalistes ; the Concept Art of Henry Flynt and Marcel Duchamp 's notion of the readymade . Though Maciunas conceived of the name "Fluxus" for a publication covering Lithuanian Culture conceived of during a meeting of Lithuanian émigrés , Fluxus soon developed into much more: an avant-garde movement characterized by playful subversion of previous art traditions (even including those of previous avant-garde movements). Fluxus also soon meant Dick Higgins' famously coined term intermedia ,

7144-974: The Eastern Orthodox world of the time. During Queen Tamar 's reign, Shota Rustaveli worked in Tbilisi while writing his legendary epic poem The Knight in the Panther's Skin . This period is often referred to as "Georgia's Golden Age" or the Georgian Renaissance . Tbilisi's "Golden Age" did not last for more than a century. In 1226, Tbilisi was captured by the Khwarezmian Empire under Shah Jalal al-Din , who massacred tens of thousands of Christians. The Khwarezmian occupation left Tbilisi's defenses severely devastated and prone to further attacks by Mongol armies. In 1236, after suffering crushing Mongol defeats , Georgia submitted to Mongol domination . The nation itself maintained

7296-584: The EuroBasket 2022 at the new 10,000-seat Tbilisi Arena (next to the Olympic Palace ), as one of the tournament co-hosts alongside Czech Republic (Prague), Germany (Berlin, Cologne), and Italy (Milan). The large majority of Georgia's media companies (including television, newspaper, and radio) are headquartered in Tbilisi. The city is home to the popular television channels Rustavi 2 , Imedi , TV Pirveli , Mtavari Arkhi , Formula , Maestro , and

7448-756: The Law on Georgia's Capital – Tbilisi (20 February 1998). Tbilisi is governed by the Tbilisi City Assembly (Sakrebulo) and the Tbilisi City Hall (Meria). The City Assembly and mayor are elected once every four years by direct elections. The Mayor of Tbilisi is Kakha Kaladze and the Chairman of the Tbilisi city Assembly is Giorgi Alibegashvili. Administratively, the city is divided into raions (districts), which have their own units of central and local government with jurisdiction over

7600-629: The Romanov family and others. The main new artery built under Russian administration was Golovin Avenue (present-day Rustaveli Avenue ), on which the Viceroys of the Caucasus established their residence. For much of the early 19th century, Tbilisi's largest ethnic group was Armenian, at some point forming 74.3% of the population. After the Russian Revolution of 1917 , the city served as

7752-662: The Seljuks , the troops of King David IV of Georgia besieged Tbilisi, taking it in 1122. David moved his residence from Kutaisi to Tbilisi, making it the capital of a unified Georgian State , thus inaugurating the Georgian Golden Age . From the 12–13th centuries, Tbilisi became a regional power with a thriving economy and astonishing cultural output. By the end of the 12th century, the population of Tbilisi had reached 100,000. The city also became an important literary and cultural center, not only for Georgia, but also for

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7904-643: The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 . On 1 May 1999, a Pillar of Shame was set up on the Zócalo in Mexico City and it stood for two days in front of the Parliament to protest the oppression of the region's indigenous people. The non-profit, artist-run organization, iKatun, artist group, The Institute of Infinitely Small Things, has reflected the use of "happenings" influence while incorporating

8056-580: The pancreas and liver in 1977. He died on May 9 of the following year in a hospital in Boston . Three months before his death, he married his friend and companion, the poet Billie Hutching. After a legal wedding in Lee, Massachusetts , the couple performed a "Fluxwedding" in a friend's loft in SoHo, February 25, 1978. The bride and groom traded clothing. The event was taped by video artist Dimitri Devyatkin . Fluxus

8208-563: The pseudo-Moorish Opera Theater , and the Georgian National Museum . The climate in Tbilisi mostly ranges from 20 to 32 °C (68 to 90 °F) in summer and −1 to 7 °C (30 to 45 °F) in winter. The name "Tbilisi" derives from Old Georgian Tbilisi ( Asomtavruli : ႧႡႨႪႨႱႨ , Mkhedruli : თბილისი ), and further from tpili ( Modern Georgian : თბილი , warm, itself from Old Georgian: ႲႴႨႪႨ ṭpili ). The name Tbilisi (the place of warmth)

8360-466: The world . In November 1993 he held the happening my inner beast where twenty sculptures were erected within 55 hours without the knowledge of the authorities all over Europe . Pillar of Shame is a series of Galschiøt's sculptures. The first happening was erected in Hong Kong on 4 June 1997, ahead of the handover from British to Chinese rule on 1 July 1997, as a protest against China's crackdown of

8512-756: The 1783 Treaty of Georgievsk . Despite this agreement, the city was captured and devastated in 1795 by the Iranian Qajar ruler Agha Mohammad Khan , who sought to re-establish Iran's traditional sovereignty over the region. In 1801, the Russian Empire annexed the Georgian Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti (of which Tbilisi was the capital), later cementing its rule with the Treaty of Gulistan of 1813, which ended Iranian control of Georgia. Within Tsarist Russia, Tbilisi (known then as Tiflis)

8664-415: The 1850s, Tbilisi once again emerged as a major trade and cultural center. The likes of Ilia Chavchavadze , Akaki Tsereteli , Mirza Fatali Akhundzade , Iakob Gogebashvili , Alexander Griboyedov and many other statesmen, poets and artists all found their home in Tbilisi. The city was visited on numerous occasions by and was the object of affection of Alexander Pushkin , Leo Tolstoy , Mikhail Lermontov ,

8816-565: The 1950s and 1960s that performed these happenings helped put "new media technology developments into context". The happenings allowed other artists to create performances that would attract attention to the issue they wanted to portray. In 1959 the French artist Yves Klein first performed Zone de Sensibilité Picturale Immatérielle . The work involved the sale of documentation of ownership of empty space (the Immaterial Zone), taking

8968-696: The AG Gallery in March 1961 featuring music and events by Maciunas himself, Toshi Ichiyanagi , Mac Low and Dick Higgins , the two other most important precursors to Fluxus were La Monte Young 's influential series of performances in the Chambers Street loft of Yoko Ono and Toshi Ichiyanagi in 1961 involving Henry Flynt , La Monte Young, Joseph Byrd & Robert Morris amongst others; and Robert Watts and George Brecht 's Yam Festival , spring 1963 at Rutgers University and New York, which included

9120-672: The Art of Paperwork . Maciunas' work has been exhibited in many of the major museums around the world with archives held in The Whitney Museum of American Art , The Walker Art Center , the Getty Research Institute , Staatsgalerie Stuttgart , and Kaunas Picture Gallery , representing the Fluxus room. Recently acquired from the Gilbert and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection, The Museum of Modern Art currently holds

9272-443: The English-language daily The Messenger , weekly FINANCIAL, Georgia Today , and the English-language weekly The Georgian Times . Out of the city's radio stations Imedi Radio (105.9 FM ), Fortuna, and Radio 105 are some of the most influential competitors with large national audiences. Radio stations in Tbilisi include 5 Lines Radio (93.8 FM), Europe +Tbilisi (99.6 FM), and Georgian Patriarchy Radio (105.4 FM). The architecture in

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9424-467: The European and Siberian art of migrations. His studies lasted eleven years from 1949 to 1960 and were completed in succession. This began a fascination with the history of art for the rest of his life, and whilst there he began his first art-history chart, measuring 6 by 12 feet, a time/space chart categorizing all past styles, movements, schools, artists etc. between 1955 and 1960. Whilst this project remained unfinished, he would publish three versions of

9576-457: The Fluxhouse Cooperatives during the late sixties. Maciunas converted buildings into live-work spaces for and envisioned the Fluxhouse Cooperatives as collective living environments composed of artists working in many mediums. With financial support from the J.M. Kaplan Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts , Maciunas began buying several loft buildings from closing manufacturing companies in 1966. The renovation and occupancies violated

9728-440: The French décadent writer Joris-Karl Huysmans and le Marquis de Sade . Then pall-bearers carried the coffin out into a gondola and the 'body'–which was a mechanical sculpture by Jean Tinguely –was ceremonially slid into the canal. Poet and painter Adrian Henri claimed to have organized the first happenings in England in Liverpool in 1962, taking place during the Merseyside Arts Festival. The most important event in London

9880-410: The Genocide Records! , c1966 (see [2] ), an American Flag comparing massacres in Nazi Germany, Russia and Vietnam; the Flux Smile Machine c1970 (see [3] ) in which a spring forces the mouth into a grimace, usually considered a critique on capitalist imperialism ; and the film 12! Big Names! , 1973 (for the poster see [4] ) in which the assembled audience, having been enticed into the cinema with

10032-407: The Georgian quarter was confined to the southeastern part of the city; Baedeker describes the layout succinctly: In the north part of the town, on the left bank of the Kurá and to the south of the railway station, stretches the clean German Quarter, formerly occupied by German immigrants from Württemberg (1818). To the south is the Gruzinian or Georgian Quarter (Avlabár). On the right bank of the Kurá

10184-417: The High Commissioner to Armenia, Colonel William N. Haskell . Under the national government, Tbilisi turned into the first Caucasian University City after the Tbilisi State University was founded in 1918. On 25 February 1921, the Bolshevist Russian 11th Red Army invaded Tbilisi and after bitter fighting at the outskirts of the city, declared Soviet rule. In 1921, the Democratic Republic of Georgia

10336-404: The M-I zoning laws that designated SoHo as a non-residential area. The zoning laws were in place to construct the Lower Manhattan Expressway , a vast highway conceived by Robert Moses which would have obliterated much of Lower Manhattan's industrial loft district. Though the Lower Manhattan Expressway was opposed by dozens of public figures and over 200 community groups, Maciuanas' efforts and

10488-418: The Maya Stendhal Gallery collaborated with the city of Vilnius, Lithuania, to open the Jonas Mekas Visual Arts Center. The center's inaugural exhibition examined the lives and work of prominent figures within the history of the avant-garde, including George Maciunas. In 2008, the gallery held an exhibition devoted to Maciunas' architectural projects, in particular, a utopian housing structure Maciunas drafted in

10640-490: The Persians ruled the city until 627, when Tbilisi was sacked by the Byzantine / Khazar armies and later, in 736–738, Arab armies entered the town under Marwan II . After this point, the Arabs established an emirate centered in Tbilisi. Arabic dirhams were brought to Georgia following the Arab conquest in the seventh century, and a mint was founded in Tbilisi that produced coins with inscriptions in both Arabic and Georgian. In 764, Tbilisi – still under Arab control –

10792-466: The Public Broadcasting Channel, among others. Tbilisi's television market has experienced notable changes since 2019, when changes in the ownership of Rustavi 2 prompted many of its employees to leave and partake in the creation of new television channels, namely Mtavari Arkhi and TV Formula. Tbilisi has a number of newspaper publishing houses. Some of the most noteworthy newspapers include the daily 24 Saati ("24 Hours"), Rezonansi ("Resonance"), Alia ,

10944-453: The Soviet Union. In 1980, the city hosted the first state-sanctioned rock festival in the USSR. As a major tourist destination for both Soviet citizens and foreign visitors, Tbilisi's "Old Town" (the neighborhoods within the original city walls) was reconstructed in the 1970s and 1980s. Tbilisi witnessed mass anti-Russian demonstrations during 1956 in the 9 March Massacre , in protest against

11096-596: The St. Christopher Summer Festival in Vilnius , Lithuania . Machunas was conceived by artist Lucio Pozzi , with music by Frank J. Oteri . Several of Maciunas' friends and colleagues protested the fact that the libretto was mistaken by many as a biography. In 2024, art historian Colby Chamberlain published an indepth book on Maciunas with the University of Chicago Press called Fluxus Administration: George Maciunas and

11248-626: The a statue Het Lieverdje on the Spui, a square in the centre of Amsterdam , from 1966 till 1968. Police often raided these events. In the 1960s Joseph Beuys , Wolf Vostell , Nam June Paik , Charlotte Moorman , Dick Higgins , and HA Schult staged happenings in Germany. In Canada, Gary Botting created or "constructed" happenings between 1969 (in St. John's, Newfoundland) and 1972 (in Edmonton, Alberta), including The Aeolian Stringer in which

11400-574: The above-mentioned groups, Tbilisi is home to other ethnic groups including Ossetians , Abkhazians , Ukrainians , Greeks , Jews , Assyrians , Yazidis , and others. More than 95% of the residents of Tbilisi practise some form of Christianity (the most predominant of which is the Georgian Orthodox Church ). The Russian Orthodox Church , which is in full communion with the Georgian Orthodox Church, and

11552-500: The anti-Stalin policies of Nikita Khrushchev . Peaceful protests occurred in 1978, and in 1989 the April 9 tragedy was a peaceful protest that turned violent. Since the break-up of the Soviet Union , Tbilisi has experienced periods of significant instability and turmoil. After a brief civil war, which the city endured for two weeks from December 1991 to January 1992 (when pro- Gamsakhurdia and Opposition forces clashed), Tbilisi became

11704-490: The artist's freedom, and artists themselves hold the ultimate power to reject fame if they do not want its responsibilities. Art and music festivals play a large role in positive and successful happenings. Some of the festivals include Burning Man and the Oregon Country Fair near Veneta, Oregon . Along with the famous work of Allan Kaprow , Burning Man frowns on the idea of having spectators and stresses

11856-471: The breakdown of boundaries in artistic media, cultural norms, and political conventions. The blurring of cultural conventions, which began in the early 20th century with movements such as Dada and Futurism , was continued by Fluxus artists in correspondence with the changes taking place in the sixties. Like the definition of "Flux", which means "to flow", Fluxus artists sought to reorder the temples of production and reveal "the extraordinary that remains latent in

12008-535: The city are left undeveloped due to the complex topographic relief. To the north of the city, a large reservoir (commonly known as the Tbilisi Sea) is fed by irrigation canals. Tbilisi has a humid temperate climate ( Köppen : Cfa , Trewartha : Do ) with considerable continental and semi-arid influences. The city experiences hot, humid summers and moderately cold dry winters. Like other regions of Georgia, Tbilisi receives significant rainfall throughout

12160-595: The city has a number of intercollegiate and amateur sports teams and clubs. Tbilisi's signature football club, Dinamo Tbilisi , has not won a major European championship since the 1980–1981 season, when it won the European UEFA Cup Winners' Cup and became the easternmost team in Europe to achieve the feat. The basketball club Dinamo Tbilisi won the Euroleague in 1962 , but also never repeated any such feat. Tbilisi hosted Group A matches for

12312-608: The city is a mixture of local (Georgian) and Byzantine , Neoclassical , Art Nouveau , Beaux-Arts , Middle Eastern, and Soviet modern styles. Very few buildings survived the destruction of the city in 1795, so most historical buildings in Tbilisi date to the Russian Imperial period (1801–1917). The oldest parts of the city (Kala, Abanotubani, Avlabari) were largely rebuilt on their medieval street plans, and some old houses were even rebuilt on much older foundations. The areas of downtown Tbilisi which were developed according to

12464-554: The clouds within and around the city, mainly during the Spring and Autumn months, resulting in prolonged rainy and/or cloudy weather. Northwesterly winds dominate in most parts of Tbilisi throughout the year. Southeasterly winds are common as well. As a multiethnic city, Tbilisi is home to more than 100 ethnic groups. Around 90% of the population consists of ethnic Georgians , with significant populations of other ethnic groups such as Armenians , Russians , and Azerbaijanis . Along with

12616-433: The command tells us to do and where it tells us to do it. For example, a user may look at a long list of slogans on the website database section, and may submit, in text, his or her take on the most literal way to act out the slogan/command. The iKatun team will then act out the slogan in a research-performance related way. This means of performance art draws on the collaboration of the web world and tangible reality to conduct

12768-479: The construction of prefabricated buildings while working at Olin Mathieson's division of Aluminum Product Development and Design. He filed a patent (#2,970,676) for the invention of a structural framework for prefabricated buildings using aluminum beams and columns on January 27, 1958. Maciunas was awarded a patent (#4,545,159) for a modular building system on February 7, 1961. He used this invention towards designing

12920-421: The convention's nature, there is no such term as "failure" which can be applied. "For when something goes "wrong", something far more "right", more revelatory may emerge. This sort of sudden near-miracle presently is made more likely by chance procedures." As a conclusion, a happening is fresh while it lasts and cannot be reproduced. Regarding happenings, Red Grooms has remarked, "I had the sense that I knew it

13072-604: The electronic composer Richard Maxfield at the New School for Social Research in New York, Maciunas met many of the future participants of Fluxus, including La Monte Young , Al Hansen , Allan Kaprow , and Jackson Mac Low . In 1961 he opened the AG Gallery at 925 Madison Avenue with fellow Lithuanian Almus Salcius, intending to finance the gallery's ambitious programme of events and exhibitions by importing delicatessen foods and rare musical instruments. The gallery, though short-lived (it closed on July 30 due to lack of funds),

13224-411: The finale, I hid behind a false door and shouted pop code words. Then the cast did a wild run around and it ended". Dubbing his 148 Delancey Street studio The Delancey Street Museum, Grooms staged three more happenings there, A Garden , The Burning Building and The Magic Trainride (originally titled Fireman's Dream ). No wonder Kaprow called Grooms "a Charlie Chaplin forever dreaming about fire". On

13376-524: The first European happening L'enterrement de la Chose in Venice . For his performance there – called Happening Funeral Ceremony of the Anti-Process – Lebel invited the audience to attend a ceremony in formal dress. In a decorated room within a grand residence, a draped 'cadaver' rested on a plinth which was then ritually stabbed by an 'executioner' while a 'service' was read consisting of extracts from

13528-708: The first happenings were organized around 1965–1968 in Antwerp , Brussels and Ostend by artists Hugo Heyrman and Panamarenko . In the Netherlands , the first documented happening took place in 1961, with the Dutch artist and performer Wim T. Schippers emptying a bottle of soda water in the North Sea near Petten. Later on, he organized random walks in the Amsterdam city centre. Provo organized happenings around

13680-503: The form included Carolee Schneemann , Red Grooms , Robert Whitman , Jim Dine Car Crash , Claes Oldenburg , Robert Delford Brown , Lucas Samaras , and Robert Rauschenberg . Some of their work is documented in Michael Kirby's book Happenings (1966). Kaprow claimed that "some of us will become famous, and we will have proven once again that the only success occurred when there was a lack of it". In 1963 Wolf Vostell made

13832-477: The form of a cheque, in exchange for gold ; if the buyer wished, the piece could then be completed in an elaborate ritual in which the buyer would burn the cheque, and Klein would throw half of the gold into the Seine . The ritual would be performed in the presence of an art critic or distinguished dealer, an art museum director and at least two witnesses. In 1960, Jean-Jacques Lebel supervised and participated in

13984-675: The foundation held an exhibition on Maciunas' architectural work centered on his prefabricated modular mass-housing system known as Fluxhouse. George . Jeffrey Perkins, Documentary feature-length film/video portrait of George Maciunas, US, 2018 Tbilisi Tbilisi ( English: / t ə b ɪ ˈ l iː s i , t ə ˈ b ɪ l ɪ s i / tə-bil- EE -see, tə- BIL -iss-ee ; Georgian : თბილისი , pronounced [ˈtʰbilisi] ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( / ˈ t ɪ f l ɪ s / TIF -liss ), ( Georgian : ტფილისი , romanized : t'pilisi )

14136-642: The happening TV-Burying at the Yam Festival in coproduction with the Smolin Gallery and in 1964 the happening You in Great Neck, New York which is on Long Island . During the summer of 1959, Red Grooms along with others (Yvonne Andersen, Bill Barrell, Sylvia Small and Dominic Falcone) staged the non-narrative "play" Walking Man , which began with construction sounds, such as sawing. Grooms recalls, "The curtains were opened by me, playing

14288-646: The heart of the Caucasus between Europe and Asia, Tbilisi became an object of rivalry among the region's various powers such as the Roman Empire , Parthia , Sassanid Persia , Muslim Arabs , the Byzantine Empire , and the Seljuk Turks . The cultural development of the city was somewhat dependent on who ruled the city at various times, although Tbilisi was fairly cosmopolitan. From 570 to 580,

14440-485: The importance of everyone being involved to create something amazing and unique. Both parties embody the "audience" and instead of creating something to show people, the audience becomes involved in helping create something incredible and spontaneous for the moment. Both of these events are happenings which are recreated and special each year; they are seen as being always new and organic. The events draw crowds of close to 50,000 people each year and reach more people than just

14592-520: The intrusion of cold air masses from Russia, Tbilisi has a relatively mild microclimate compared to other cities that possess a similar climate along the same latitudes. The average annual temperature in Tbilisi is 13.8 °C (56.8 °F). January is the coldest month with an average temperature of 2.7 °C (36.9 °F). July is the hottest month with an average temperature of 25.4 °C (77.7 °F). Daytime high temperatures reach or exceed 32 °C (90 °F) on an average of 22 days during

14744-460: The king Tahmasp I (r. 1524–1576) resulted in the reoccupation of Kartli and Kakheti, and a Safavid force was permanently stationed in Tbilisi from 1551 onwards. With the 1555 Treaty of Amasya , and more firmly from 1614 to 1747, with brief intermissions, Tbilisi was an important city under Iranian rule, and it functioned as a seat of the Iranian vassal kings of Kartli whom the shah conferred with

14896-587: The largest collection of Maciunas and Fluxus works of 10,000 items. As part of a touring exhibition organized by Dartmouth College , Maciunas' work was featured in "Fluxus and the Essential Questions of Life" at New York University 's Grey Gallery in Fall 2011 and University of Michigan 's Museum of Art in Spring 2012. Despite controversy, the Stendhal gallery has held multiple exhibitions devoted to

15048-460: The late 18th century, Tbilisi would again be under the rule of various foreign powers. On several occasions, the city would even be completely burned and razed to the ground. In 1386, Tbilisi was invaded and sacked several times by the armies of Tamerlane . In 1440, the city was invaded and destroyed by Jahan Shah (the Shah of the town of Tabriz , Persia ). From 1477 to 1478, the city was held by

15200-407: The late Bronze Age to early Iron Age, it was the largest settlement in the Caucasus. According to legend, the present-day territory of Tbilisi was covered by forests as late as 458. One widely accepted variant of the Tbilisi foundation myth states that King Vakhtang I of Iberia ( r.  c. 447/49 – 502/22 ) went hunting in the heavily wooded region with a falcon (sometimes the falcon

15352-734: The late fifties and early sixties, entitled "George Maciunas: Prefabricated Building Systems." In 2010 problems arose between Harry Stendhal and Jonas Mekas in which some of the practices of the Stendhal Gallery fell into question, causing concern among surviving Fluxus artists. The George Maciunas/Fluxus Foundation, became active in November 2011, presenting exhibitions on the contemporary applications of Maciunas' inventions and theories regarding education and architecture. These exhibitions have explored his ideas as precursors to adaptive design processes and global networks. In September 2012,

15504-570: The legacy and work of George Maciunas. In 2005, they presented "To George With Love: From the Personal Collection of Jonas Mekas ," which displayed original drawings, posters, objects, and other Fluxus items as well as various films from the Fluxfilm Anthology, a collection of 41 films made by Fluxus artists. In 2006, the gallery presented "George Maciunas, 1953–1978: Charts Diagrams, Films, Documents, and Atlases." In 2007,

15656-563: The local language. In addition, the Georgian-language form Ṭpilisi was modernized on the basis of a proposal by Georgian linguists; the ancient Georgian component ტფილი ( ṭpili , 'warm') was replaced by the newer თბილი ( tbili ). That form was the basis for the new official Russian name ( Тбилиси Tbilisi ). Most other languages have subsequently adopted the new name form, but some languages, such as Turkish, Persian, Greek , Spanish , and German , have retained

15808-418: The loft artists' power effectively stopped Moses, "Opposition to the expressway was going nowhere. Our whole planning board couldn't even slow it down. Then a handful of artists stepped in and stopped it cold". When Kaplan left the project to embark on other artist cooperative buildings, Maciunas was left with little support against the law. Maciunas continued the co-op despite contravening planning laws, buying

15960-457: The medium of internet. Their aim is one which "fosters public engagement in the politics of information". Their project entitled The International Database of Corporate Commands presents a scrutinizing look at the super-saturating advertisements slogans, and "commands" of companies. "The Institute for Infinitely Small Things" uses the commands to conduct research performances, performances in which we attempt to enact, as literally as possible, what

16112-806: The most popular city sports. Influence from the Russian Empire brought more Western sports and activities (billiards, fencing) to Tbilisi. The Soviet period brought an increased popularization of sports that were common in Europe and, to a certain extent, the United States. At the same time, Tbilisi developed the necessary infrastructure for professional sports. By 1978, the city had around 250 large and small sports facilities, including, among others, four indoor and six outdoor Olympic-sized pools, 185 basketball courts and halls, 192 volleyball facilities, 82 handball arenas, 19 tennis courts, 31 football fields, and five stadiums. The largest stadium in Tbilisi

16264-502: The nation in general). Mass protests took place in November 2003 after falsified parliamentary elections forced more than 100,000 people into the streets and concluded with the Rose Revolution . Since 2003, Tbilisi has experienced considerably more stability with decreasing crime rates, an improved economy, and a real estate boom. During the 2008 South Ossetia war , the Tbilisi area was hit by multiple Russian air attacks. After

16416-597: The occupying forces, Jurgis Mačiūnas and his family emigrated to the US in 1948, living in a middle class area of Long Island , New York . After arriving in the US, George studied art, graphic design , and architecture at Cooper Union , architecture and musicology at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh and finally art history at New York University 's Institute of Fine Arts specializing in

16568-458: The opening night of The Burning Building , Bob Thompson solicited an audience member for a light, since none of the cast had one, and this gesture of spontaneous theater recurred in eight subsequent performances. The Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama staged nude happenings during the late '60s in New York City. Happenings emphasize the organic connection between art and its environment. Kaprow supports that "happenings invite us to cast aside for

16720-599: The performer and the audience. In his Water , Robert Whitman had the performers drench each other with colored water. "One girl squirmed between wet inner tubes, ultimately struggling through a large silver vulva." Claes Oldenburg , best known for his innovative sculptures, used a vacant house, his own store, and the parking lot of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics in Los Angeles for Injun , World's Fair II and AUT OBO DYS . The idea

16872-640: The performers follow based on surrounding props. Unlike other forms of art, happenings that allow chance to enter are ever-changing. When chance determines the path the performance will follow, there is no room for failure. As Kaprow wrote in his essay, "'Happenings' in the New York Scene", "Visitors to a Happening are now and then not sure what has taken place, when it has ended, even when things have gone 'wrong". For when something goes 'wrong', something far more 'right,' more revelatory, has many times emerged". Kaprow's piece 18 Happenings in 6 Parts (1959)

17024-519: The piano was completely destroyed. This event was considered scandalous enough to appear on German television four times. The festival then traveled to Cologne , Paris , Düsseldorf , Amsterdam , The Hague , and Nice . These concerts and events were to become integral to the legacy of Fluxus. After his contract with the US Airforce was terminated due to chronic illness, Maciunas was forced to return to New York, September 1963. He began to work as

17176-648: The promise of 12 big names, including Andy Warhol and Yoko Ono, watched a film made entirely of 12 names—Warhol, Ono etc.—filling the 20-foot-wide (6.1 m) screen, one after the other, for a duration of five minutes each. Maciunas held several prestigious professional positions as an architect and graphic designer in firms including Skidmore, Owings & Merrill , Air Force Exchanges (Europe), Jack Marshad Inc., Olin Mathieson Chemical Corporation , and Knoll Associates. As an architect, he developed an innovative modular prototype useful in

17328-432: The same way Cage explored silence. It is a form of symbolism: actions concerned with 'now' or fantasies derived from life, or organized structures of events appealing to archetypal symbolic associations." A "Happening" of the same performance will have different outcomes because each performance depends on the action of the audience. Happenings can be a form of participatory new media art, emphasizing an interaction between

17480-475: The scene of frequent armed confrontations among various mafia clans and illegal business operators. During the Shevardnadze Era (1992–2003), crime and corruption were rampant. Many segments of society became impoverished because of unemployment caused by the crumbling economy. Average citizens of Tbilisi started to become increasingly disillusioned with the existing quality of life in the city (and in

17632-562: The second half of the 1980s, a student-based happening movement Orange Alternative founded by Major Waldemar Fydrych became known for its much attended happenings (over 10 thousand participants at one time) aimed against the military regime led by General Jaruzelski and the fear blocking the Polish society ever since martial law had been imposed in December 1981. Since 1993 the artist Jens Galschiøt has had political happenings all over

17784-586: The shape of an amphitheatre surrounded by mountains on three sides. To the north, Tbilisi is bounded by the Saguramo Range , to the east and south-east by the Iori Plain , to the south and west by various endings (subranges) of the Trialeti Range . The relief of Tbilisi is complex. The part of the city which lies on the left bank of the Kura River extends for more than 30 km (19 mi) from

17936-449: The successor of Vakhtang I, moved the capital of Iberia from Mtskheta to Tbilisi and began construction of the fortress wall that lined the city's new boundaries. From the sixth century, Tbilisi grew at a steady pace due to the region's strategic location along with important trade and travel routes between Europe and Asia. Tbilisi's favorable trade location, however, did not necessarily bode well for its survival. Located strategically in

18088-410: The tastes of the patrons (even if that may not be the intention on both ends). "The whole situation is corrosive, neither patrons nor artists comprehend their role...and out of this hidden discomfort comes a stillborn art, tight or merely repetitive and at worst, chic." Though the we may easily blame those offering the temptation, Kaprow reminds us that it is not the publicist's moral obligation to protect

18240-407: The theater of the oppressed by becoming the actors. His goal was to allow the downtrodden to act out the forces oppressing them in order to mobilize the people into political action. Both Kaprow and Boal are reinventing theater to try to make plays more interactive and to abolish the traditional narrative form to make theater something more free-form and organic. Allan Kaprow 's and other artists of

18392-678: The title of vali . In 1718, the Venetian senate implored the Safavid emperor Soltan Hoseyn to protect the Catholic Armenians and Capuchin missionaries in Tbilisi from the Gregorian Armenians. Under the later rules of Teimuraz II and Heraclius II , Tbilisi became a vibrant political and cultural center free of foreign rule—but, fearful of the constant threat of invasion, Georgia's rulers sought Russian protection in

18544-422: The traditional role of art and artist, its humor is reflective of a goal to bring life back into art, which Maciunas states in his agenda, "If man could experience the world, the concrete world surrounding him (from mathematical ideas to physical matter) in the same way he experiences art, there would be no need for art, artists and similar 'nonproductive' elements". In 1960, whilst attending composition classes of

18696-484: The undisclosed ordinary" during the midst of the dramatic modernist epoch. Primarily influenced by John Cage 's Experimental Music Composition classes at the New School for Social Research and an emerging interest in Eastern Philosophy , a number of avant-garde artists in New York were beginning to run parallel and competing Happenings at the beginning of the 1960s. As well as Maciunas' concerts at

18848-563: The urban landscape is largely characterized by unregulated construction. New towers occupy formerly public spaces and overcrowded apartment buildings sprout "kamikaze loggia" overnight. Since 2004, the city government has taken initiatives to curb uncontrolled construction projects with mixed success. Tbilisi now has several skyscraper complexes, such as the Axis Towers , Hilton Garden Inn Tbilisi Chavchavadze , Holiday Inn Tbilisi , and King David Residences . Happening A happening

19000-476: The war, several large-scale projects were started, including a streetcar system, a railway bypass and a relocation of the central station , and new urban highways. In June 2015, a flood killed at least twenty people and caused animals from the city's zoo to be released into the streets. The status of Tbilisi, as the nation's capital, is defined by Article 10 of the Constitution of Georgia (1995) and

19152-433: The world of bourgeois sickness, 'intellectual', professional & commercialized culture ... PROMOTE A REVOLUTIONARY FLOOD AND TIDE IN ART, ... promote NON ART REALITY to be grasped by all peoples, not only critics, dilettantes and professionals ... FUSE the cadres of cultural, social & political revolutionaries into united front & action. Shared by its sibling art movements pop art and minimalism , Fluxus expressed

19304-407: The world via associates and friends to persuade the authorities that he was abroad, and placing razor-sharp guillotine blades onto his front door to avoid unwanted visitors. Though, like other Fluxus projects, Maciunas managed his duties without personal profit, financial disputes between the cooperatives led to problems. On November 8, 1975, an argument with an electrician over unpaid bills resulted in

19456-502: The year with no distinct dry period. The city's climate is influenced both by dry (Central Asian/Siberian) air masses from the east and oceanic (Atlantic/Black Sea) air masses from the west. Because the city is bounded on most sides by mountain ranges, the close proximity to large bodies of water (Black and Caspian Seas ) and the fact that the Greater Caucasus Mountains Range (further to the north) blocks

19608-691: Was occupied by the Soviet Bolshevik forces from Russia, and until 1936, Tbilisi functioned first as the capital city of the Transcaucasian SFSR (which included Armenia, Azerbaijan , and Georgia), and afterward until 1991 as the capital of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic . During Soviet rule, Tbilisi's population grew significantly, the city became more industrialized, and it also came to be an important political, social, and cultural centre of

19760-416: Was Maciunas. So fluxus, as far as I'm concerned, is Maciunas. Maciunas remains enigmatic to this day, and his reputation still elicits strong responses both from artists and critics who have come after Fluxus, and by artists who knew him whilst still alive. it was a special mission for George to turn up the lights on any such illusionism and he was ever out to demonstrate that the art world has no clothes. He

19912-419: Was a student of John Cage , who had experimented with "musical happenings" at Black Mountain College as early as 1952. Kaprow combined the theatrical and visual arts with discordant music. "His happenings incorporated the use of huge constructions or sculptures similar to those suggested by Artaud ," wrote Botting, who also compared them to the "impermanent art" of Dada. "A happening explores negative space in

20064-443: Was also closely involved with the production of a number of Flux Chess sets. Perhaps most important of all of Maciunas's publishing activities remain the object multiples, conceived as inexpensive, mass-produced unlimited editions. These were either works made by individual Fluxus artists, sometimes in collaboration with Maciunas, or, most controversially, Maciunas's own interpretations of an artist's concept or score. Their purpose

20216-442: Was assembling Fluxus boxes and Flux-Kits, small boxes containing cards and objects designed and assembled by artists such as Christo , Yoko Ono, and George Brecht. The first one to be planned was Fluxus 1 , a wooden box filled with artworks by most of Maciunas' colleagues. Production difficulties meant that the publication date was pushed back to 1964; Brecht's Water Yam , 1963, became the first Flux box to actually be published. It

20368-708: Was declared by their respective national councils on 26 to 28 May 1918. After this, Tbilisi functioned as the capital of the Democratic Republic of Georgia until 25 February 1921. From 1918 to 1919, the city also consecutively served as the headquarters of the country's German garrison and later the British 27th Division ; Tbilisi was also the main office of the British Chief Commissioner in Transcaucasia, Oliver Wardrop and

20520-643: Was decreed as bourgeois by communist authorities, who introduced experimental modern architecture. The more conservative and historically inflected Stalinist architecture in Georgia is embodied by the 1938 Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute building ("Imeli"), now housing the Biltmore Hotel Tbilisi . Tbilisi's postwar architecture is similar to the brand of midcentury modernism found across the Soviet Union. The city expanded dramatically in response to

20672-582: Was devoted to new and groundbreaking art across genres and held exhibits and performance art events by many of his new acquaintances. To avoid debt collectors, Maciunas took a job as a civilian graphic designer at a U.S. Air Force base in Wiesbaden, Germany in late 1961. It was there that he organized the first Fluxus Festival in September 1962. This festival featured various "concerts," scripted actions performed by Fluxus artists, as well as interpreting

20824-582: Was epitomized by the work of George Brecht, particularly his word event, "Exit." The artwork consists solely of a card on which is printed the words: "Word Event" and then the word "Exit" below. Maciunas said of "Exit": The best Fluxus 'Composition' is a most non-personal, 'readymade' one like Brecht's 'Exit'—it does not require and of us to perform it since it happens daily without any 'special' performance of it. Thus our festivals will eliminate themselves (and our need to participate) when they become total readymades (like Brecht's exit) (see [1] ) Whilst Maciunas

20976-571: Was in a happening in my Maidenform brassiere". Happenings are difficult to describe, in part because each one is unique. One definition comes from Wardrip-Fruin and Montfort in The New Media Reader , "The term 'happening' has been used to describe many performances and events, organized by Allan Kaprow and others during the 1950s and 1960s, including a number of theatrical productions that were traditionally scripted and invited only limited audience interaction." Another definition

21128-621: Was included within the Tiflis Uyezd county in 1801, and became the administrative center of the Tiflis Governorate ( Gubernia ) following the latter's establishment in 1846. Russian Imperial administrators implemented a new European-style city plan and commissioned new buildings in Western styles. Roads and railroads were built to connect Tbilisi to other important cities in the Russian Empire , such as Batumi and Poti . By

21280-645: Was once again sacked by the Khazars. In 853, the armies of Arab leader Bugha Al-Turki invaded Tbilisi in order to enforce its return to Abbasid allegiance. The Arab domination of Tbilisi continued until about 1050. In 1065, the Seljuk Sultan Alp Arslan campaigned against the Kingdom of Georgia , subjugated Tbilisi, and built a mosque in the city. In 1121, after the Battle of Didgori against

21432-449: Was one – and damn by association those who had anything to do with them. All this was wearying. Richard Long 's walks, Gilbert and George posing as living sculptures, Sarah Lucas 's early work and a million other small gestures, actions and ephemeral objects can trace their origins back to Fluxus. It was a conduit through which ideas and personalities flowed, and still flow today. Fluxus inevitably failed, and came to be seen as old hat. It

21584-445: Was partly a problem of packaging, though Maciunas was a very good graphic designer for whom no detail was too small to be worried over. Fluxus's aim to eliminate music, theatre, poetry, fiction and all the rest of the fine arts combined was doomed. Only the mass entertainment industry might achieve such a thing. The view that his death liberated Fluxus is also widespread; I do believe that Fluxus not only survived George, but now that it

21736-504: Was perhaps the toughest of all on artists, reserving his strictest judgments for those he saw as self-promoting egoists who played into the hands of "High Art" barons. Dreamer. Child. Utopian , Fascist , Christ, Democrat, Madman. A realist whose realism always needed another kind of reality. (His conceptions of reality never coincided with the accepted reality.) He was beautiful, foolish, dogmatic, charming. Impossible. Adrian Searle , art critic for The Guardian , put it succinctly in

21888-477: Was published in 1958 but primarily written in 1956. "Happening" also appeared in print in one issue of the Rutgers University undergraduate literary magazine, Anthologist . The form was imitated and the term was adopted by artists across the U.S. , Germany , and Japan . Jack Kerouac referred to Kaprow as "The Happenings man", and an ad showing a woman floating in outer space declared, "I dreamt I

22040-527: Was quickly followed by similar collected works of other affiliated artists, such as Ben Vautier and Robert Watts; the Fluxkit contained in an attaché case (1965–66) and another compendium Flux Year Box 2 (1966–68). There was an anthology of Fluxfilms (1966), 11 irregularly-spaced editions of the Fluxus newspaper cc V TRE edited with George Brecht (1964–79) and the Fluxus Cabinet (1975–77). He

22192-497: Was something. I knew it was something because I didn't know what it was. I think that's when you're at your best point. When you're really doing something, you're doing it all out, but you don't know what it is." The lack of plot as well as the expected audience participation can be likened to Augusto Boal's Theater of the Oppressed , which also claims that "spectator is a bad word". Boal expected audience members to participate in

22344-484: Was still alive, no Fluxus work was ever signed or numbered, and many weren't even credited to any artist. As such, huge confusion continues to surround many key Fluxus works; Maciunas strived to uphold his stated aims of demonstrating the artist's 'non-professional status...his dispensability and inclusiveness' and that 'anything can be art and anyone can do it.' This strategy was maintained throughout his life; key works that have been assigned to him include USA Surpasses all

22496-574: Was the Albert Hall " International Poetry Incarnation " on June 11, 1965, where an audience of 7,000 people witnessed and participated in performances by some of the leading avant-garde young British and American poets of the day (see British Poetry Revival and Poetry of the United States ). One of the participants, Jeff Nuttall , went on to organize a number of further happenings, often working with his friend Bob Cobbing , sound poet and performance poet . In Tokyo in 1964, Yoko Ono created

22648-528: Was the seat of the Caucasus Viceroyalty , governing both the northern and the southern parts of the Caucasus . Because of its location at the crossroads between Europe and Asia, and its proximity to the lucrative Silk Road , throughout history, Tbilisi has been a point of contention among various global powers. To this day, the city's location ensures its position as an important transit route for energy and trade projects. Tbilisi's history

22800-619: Was therefore given to the city because of the area's numerous sulfuric hot springs . Until 1936, the name of the city in English and most other languages followed the Persian pronunciation Tiflis , while the Georgian name was ტფილისი ( Ṭpilisi ). On 17 August 1936, by order of the Soviet leadership, the official Russian names of various cities were changed to more closely match

22952-449: Was to break down the fourth wall between performer and spectator; with the involvement of the spectator as performer, objective criticism is transformed into subjective support. For some happenings, everyone present is included in the making of the art and even the form of the art depends on audience engagement, for they are a key factor in where the performers' spontaneity leads. Later happenings had no set rules, only vague guidelines that

23104-446: Was to erode the cultural status of art and to help to eliminate the artist's ego. Maciunas, a trained graphic designer, was responsible for the memorable packaging of Fluxus objects, posters and newspapers, helping to give the movement a sense of unity that the artists themselves often denied. He also designed a series of name cards incorporating multiple fonts to characterise each of the participating artists. According to Maciunas, Fluxus

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