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± I96I Founding the Expanded Arts (18/06/2013)

19 de junio – 28 de octubre de 2013 / Main site

Choosing a field of radical invention before the leading names and terms of the decade were critically and historically defined – considering precursors such as Anna Halprin and John Cage, and breakthrough 1961 work by figures such as La Monte Young, Robert Morris, George Brecht, Henry Flynt, Simone Forti, Jackson Mac Low, Walter De Maria, George Maciunas, Ray Johnson, Emmett Williams, Nam June Paik, Yoko Ono – the exhibition traces the initial crystallization of certain key ideas. At the center of this is the musical score, subjected to unprecedented experimentation, which became the ur-model for all the arts, rupturing disciplinary and medium specificity, revealing a newly activated creative field that extends from the postmodern to now.

The period surrounding 1961 revealed a new contingency arising between the artist/ composer/ poet/ dancer/ choreographer and their media. As an emphasis on time and concept began to generate shared terms, medium was selected not for innate reasons but simply to serve the task at hand. In this charged moment, John Cage’s impact looms large, along with other precursor figures such as choreographer Anna Halprin, and their initiatives subtend the historical matrix of the exhibition. But it is the new generation with which the show is principally concerned. Galvanizing figures, in their different ways, La Monte Young, Jackson Mac Low, and eventually George Maciunas (who founded Fluxus the following year based on his “1961 experience”), will be presented in relation to a spectrum of emerging projects.

Organisation: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid)
Curators: Julia Robinson and Christian Xatrec
Coordination: Beatriz Jordana and Rafael García
Related Activities: CONFERENCE by both curators: About ± I96I The expansion of the arts, and performance by Simone Forti
19th June 2013, 17:30 h

 

For further information, please download the full press release.