Fluxus – International Mail Art Exhibition 2021
A few months ago I took part in Fluxus, International Mail Art Exhibition in the frame of 1st International Meeting of greek FLUXUS (I wrote about the catalogue in one of my previous posts.). This meeting is a collaboration of the Photography Center of Thessaloniki and the 3rd Workshop of School of Visual and Applied Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts, AUTh (Director: Giorgos Tsakiris) with Fluxus Zone Atelier by Giannis Stamenitis.
Born as an idea of confrontation between “academic” and “commercial” art, Fluxus* acquired its own identity and concept, becoming a certain form of creative work. The purpose of Fluxus is to merge in one “stream” various ways of artistic expression and communication means of concrete and electronic music, visual poetry, movement, symbolic gestures. The main principle is absolute spontaneity, arbitrariness, rejection of any restrictions, which was achieved by such forms as an event, happening, performance, decollage, installation, various street actions and performances, anti-theatre.
The meeting included different events:
- poetry and other texts reading
- music collaboratons mainly with the use of traditional instruments
- musical-theatrical performances
- theme happenings about art, gender relationships, gastronomy etc
- mail art. Theme: ‘FLUXUS’:
- Mail art fluxus (this is the main topic where I participated)
- Mail art Fluxus VS covid
- Mail art FLUXUSfreedom!
- Mail art Be a postage stamp!
But COVID-19 had his “own plan”.
Due to the deterioration of the pandemic situation in Greece and the strict conditions imposed on public gatherings, we decided to postpone the event that was scheduled for September 2020, in the context of the 1st International Meeting of the Greek FLUXUS for the autumn of 2021.
– Photography Center of Thessaloniki
At the preparatory stage of the event, electronic catalogues were issued and my works were published there:
1) ‘FLUXUS envelopes’, 1st International Meeting of greek FLUXUS – 2021, Photography Center of Thessaloniki, publication date: 9 February 2021. p.12.
Link: https://issuu.com/photographycenterthessaloniki/docs/fluxus_envelops
2) ‘2020-21 FLUXUS KAI STA MOYTRA SOU’, catalog of the International Mail Art Exhibition, 1st International Meeting of greek FLUXUS, publication date: 14 April 2021. pp.74-75
Link: https://issuu.com/photographycenterthessaloniki/docs/fluxus_kai_sta_moytra_sou_mail_art
The second event started on Sunday, August 29, 2021 in the context of the event ‘Livadi of the Ephemeral V’. There was a FLUXUS performance in the field, which include the planting of envelopes from the shipments of FLUXUS mail projects art, along with the planting of 200 onion and garlic seeds, that is, all the participating artists. This was followed by a group cleaning of onions, which symbolized the crying for our bad fate and hanging garlic on the trees for the exorcism of misfortune.
Another event was on Saturday, October 16, 2021:
In celebration of the 100th birthday of Joseph Beuys at the MOMus Experimental Arts Center in Porto, some 400 works will be mailed. FLUXUS clothespins with public participation. Then they will “walk” along the beach, meet their spectators and chat with pedestrians on the beach. This event takes place in the context of the “1st International Meeting of the Greek FLUXUS 2020-21” organized by the Photographic Center of Thessaloniki and the 3rd Laboratory of the Department of Fine and Applied Arts of the AUTh School of Fine Arts, together with the Fluxus Zone Atelier of Yannis Stamenitis and is the continuation of a series of performances, took place in Livadi tou Ephemeros last August, where onions and garlic were planted along with the FLUXUS mailbox folders and symbolically associated with the planting of 7000 acorns in Kassel.
– Photography Center of Thessaloniki
The final event in the frame of the 1st International Meeting of greek FLUXUS was on Saturday, December 18, 2021. Mail Art met once again with the public of Thessaloniki, on Papamarkou street.
This exhibition was organized in the frame of the exhibition hosted by the art space “ΆΘΩΝΟΣ ART SPACE” (Papamarkou 25, Athonos Square) by Vasilis Karkatselis, with archive works entitled “Works that were posted (mail art)”.
*Read more about Fluxus on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluxus
Read more about the Photography Center of Thessaloniki:
https://www.fkth.gr/en
And check out their Facebook for updates:
https://www.facebook.com/fkthgr2013
