George Maciunas "7 Paintings From 1950’s and Graphic Works"
Stendhal Gallery
This event has ended.
The focal point of the exhibition will be recently discovered seven paintings by Fluxus founder George Maciunas. As these canvases have never been exhibited publicly, this is a rare viewing opportunity and a chance to understand more about Maciunas’s personal history as an artist. Dating from the early- to mid-1950s, when Maciunas was just entering his twenties, the canvases reveal an eclectic mix of influences and interests. Maciunas had not yet begun formal post-secondary training in architecture, design and art, but was already an autodidact in art and its history, both western and eastern. European and Asian aesthetics are evident in the images, which variously evoke Max Ernst’s surrealist landscapes, Joan Miro’s colorful biomorphic shapes, German Expressionism, Japanese nature scenes and calligraphic brushstrokes.
The 7 paintings represent an important transitional period in Maciunas’s career when, like many artists of his generation, he grappled with abstraction and figuration in painting before abandoning the medium all together. By the turn of the 1960s he was drawn to participate in the new subculture of artists breaking down the boundaries between traditional artistic media. Fluxus performances and objects would become some of the most important manifestations of this critical trend.
An installation-like display of the typographic print No Smoking, devised by Fluxus artist George Brecht, designed and published by George Maciunas will also be on display in the Project Room of the Gallery. This print in particular encapsulates key aspects of Fluxus, including artistic collaboration, economy of idea and form, innovative graphic design, humor, early examples of artistic ‘branding,’ sociopolitical engagement, and even Maciunas’s desire for discipline and commitment to the Fluxus cause. In conjunction with the exhibition the Stendhal Gallery will publish a 2-color Hand-pulled silk screen print of No Smoking in its striking original black-and-white design, released as a first collectors edition of 500. For the special price of $300. All profits from the sale of this print will go to the George Maciunas Foundation Inc., a 501 (c)(3) non-for profit tax exempt arts organization.
Media
Schedule
from October 31, 2009 to January 23, 2010