Performing Fluxus

Venue: Walcot Chapel BA1 5UG

27 May to 12 June - open 11am to 6pm daily

(6pm ‘til late on 27th May - 11am to 3pm on 12 June)

The Fluxus Performance Workbook is a free online resource containing over 100 pages of scores by artists including George Brecht, Ken Friedman, Alison Knowles, Yoko Ono, Nam Jun Paik, Meiko Shiomi, mostly form the early and mid 1960s. https://www.thing.net/~grist/ld/fluxusworkbook.pdf.

With scores based on everyday objects and actions, absurd, playful, subversive, 'anti art', lots of them still feel fresh and funny today, challenging what audiences expect and what art is for.

For FaB I invited others to propose new works based on scores from this book that they'd like to perform or produce. There will be live performances in Bath, documentation of live performances elsewhere, objects, photos, videos drawings, installations, sound recordings.

You will see group and solo performances, in the gallery and around the town, some participatory. In Walcot Chapel you will find installations of images, sound, objects re-invented, eg - a conversation with a bird, music made by pouring wine and jangling coins. A balloon race. Parcels wrapped & unwrapped, broken furniture repaired with bandages. Paintings to be stepped on, and many mores surprises.

Rachel Cohen - T O M A S S C H M I T - Zyklus - Photo Credit Bernard G Mills

Contributing Artists

Caitlin Mary Margarett, Eddy Dreadnought, Farmhouse Art Collective, Giovanna Iorio, Gustavo Dias-Vallejo, Guyan Porter, Jessica Blinkhorn, Joanna Leah, Katy Watson, Kevin Moore, Rachel Cohen, Santa Sprees & The Now Or Never Intuitive Music Ensemble, Sara Grisewood, Sophie Shenstone, Vicky Vatcher.

Curated by Rachel Cohen

Rachel Cohen is an artist working in painting, drawing, performance and installation.

She has produced site-specific solo and group shows: House Keeping at Regency Town House, Hove in 2017 and Holding the Fort at Newhaven Fort in 2019.

Rachel has twice performed Tomas Schmit's Zyklus score from The Fluxus Performance Workbook, on the Thames in London 2020 and at Tide Mills in Sussex 2021, and she performs live and online with Safehouse Improvisation Collective, Brighton and Rough Work.