George Maciunas
Director · 1931 – 1978 · Kaunas, Lithuania
George Maciunas (Lithuanian: Jurgis Mačiūnas; November 8, 1931 – May 9, 1978) was a Lithuanian American artist. He was a founding member and the central coordinator of Fluxus, an international community of artists, architects, composers, and designers. Other leading members brought together by this movement included Ay-O, Joseph Beuys, Jonas Mekas, George Brecht, Dick Higgins, Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik and Wolf Vostell. He is most famous for organising and performing early happenings and for assembling a series of highly influential artists' multiples. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movies8
Movie6.8DocumentaryThe quixotic journey of Nam June Paik, one of the most famous Asian artists of the 20th century, who revolutionized the use of technology as an artistic canvas and prophesied both the fascist tendencies and intercultural understanding that would arise from the interconnected metaverse of today's world.
Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV
2023 · 10 votes
Movie6.6Jonas Mekas’s intimate diary film spans 1963 to 1990, capturing Andy Warhol alongside friends and collaborators from the New York avant-garde. Featuring figures such as Allen Ginsberg, John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and George Maciunas—as well as rare footage of the Velvet Underground’s first performance—it offers a personal portrait of Warhol’s world and his intersections with art, music, and counterculture.
Movie7.0DocumentaryIn 1961 Lithuanian American artist and impresario George Maciunas established the avant-garde art movement Fluxus. George details the rise of Fluxus following a sensationalized tour of “concerts” in Europe in 1962, and continuing in New York for most of the 1960s and ’70s. During this time Maciunas was converting the dying industrial buildings of Soho into a network of artists’ lofts, creating one of the first official real estate co-ops of artist-owned buildings. Maciunas’s life and legacy—as recounted by artists of his generation, including Yoko Ono and Jonas Mekas—ignited debates that remain pivotal to artists working today.
MovieOn March 24, 1979, The Kitchen presented a two-part program dedicated to the work of various Fluxus artists. The programming began with the premiere of Alison Knowles’s “Natural Assemblages and the True Crow.” For the piece, Knowles engaged in a dialogue with her own taped voice, which read aloud selections from various natural history books. Simultaneously, violinist Michael Goldstein provided an improvised score while dancer Jessie Higgins executed a number of one-movement phrases by following instructions on index cards. The second part of the night’s programming consisted of forty rapid performances—most sixty seconds or less—by various Fluxus members, including Yoko Ono, George Brecht, La Monte Young, and Nam June Paik. Ken Friedman and Larry Miller coordinated this portion of the event.
Flux-Concert
1979
Movie7.3DramaBarbara, a young woman consumed by despair, contemplates suicide, while a man she meets in a church and a married couple struggle to persuade her that life is still worth living. Mekas’s film weaves this intimate drama into a larger reflection on alienation, politics, and the turbulence of early 1960s America.
Guns of the Trees
1961 · 18 votes
Movie8.4DocumentaryA film collage tracing the story of the lives, loves, and deaths within the artistic community surrounding Jonas Mekas.
He Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life
1986 · 10 votes
Movie5.3MusicOn October 9, 1972, the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse hosted an exhibition of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s work, designed by Fluxus artist George Maciunas. That same day, friends including Ringo Starr, Allen Ginsberg, and Paul Krassner gathered to celebrate Lennon’s birthday. Jonas Mekas’s film records the event in both image and sound, capturing the spirit of the moment and the community around Lennon and Ono.
Happy Birthday to John
1997 · 10 votes
Movie6.2DocumentaryThe life and work of Fluxus artist George Maciunas as seen in clips filmed between 1952 and 1978.