Fluxus Administration: George Maciunas and the Art of Paperwork

A new, innovative approach to the work of Fluxus artist George Maciunas.

Though widely recognized as the founder of the legendary Fluxus movement, George Maciunas has long been a puzzling figure in the history of twentieth-century art. Many have questioned whether he should be considered an artist at all. In Fluxus Administration, critic and art historian Colby Chamberlain reveals the consistent artistic practice hidden behind Maciunas’s varied work in architecture, music, performance, publication, graphic design, film, and real estate as an attempt to create models for community through structures of bureaucracy.

In this deeply researched study, Chamberlain traces how Maciunas’s art insinuated itself into settings as unlikely as the routes of the postal service, the fine print of copyright law, the zoning strictures of urban planning, and the corridors of hospitals. These shifting frames of reference expand our understanding of where an artistic practice can operate and what forms it might assume. In particular, Chamberlain draws on media theory to highlight Maciunas’s ingeniously crafted paperwork, much of which is beautifully reproduced here for the first time.

Colby Chamberlain is associate professor of art history at the Cleveland Institute of Art. His scholarship and criticism have appeared in publications including Artforum, ARTMargins, Grey Room, October, and Triple Canopy. This is his first book.