Fluxus, Maciunas, and Copyright
Yep, you heard right.
The Fluxus Foundation has what seems a great art & law exhibition, © Fluxus: Original Copyright Documents, 1963-1967, at their foundation space at 454 West 19th St.
From their website:
George Maciunas, founder and central coordinator of Fluxus, was an exemplary processor of knowledge. Educated in architecture, painting, art history, graphic design, and musicology, Maciunas’s oeuvre demonstrates incredible diversity. Yet, his multifaceted output is unified by a diagrammatic aesthetic—one that illustrates his analytic mind and sheer meticulousness.
The copyright documents featured in this exhibition are a testament to Maciunas’s scrupulousness. After establishing the Fluxus Headquarters in New York, Maciunas sought copyright protection for Fluxus and its artists to safeguard the group’s interests. He painstakingly registered claims to copyright for every Fluxus work starting in 1963, including George Brecht’s Fluxkit Water Yam (1964), Yoko Ono’s Four (Fluxfilm no. 16) (1966), Albert M. Fine’s Piece For Fluxorchestra(1966), Chieko Shiomi’s Spatial Poem No. 2 (1966), Maciunas’s very own Prefabricated Building System (1965), and much, much more.
Thanks to Lauren van Haaften-Schick for the heads up on this one.