July 2009 Archives
Allison McElroy, 411 #2, rolled-up phonebook pages, wire, black frame, 2009
Anarchic and whimsical, Fluxus was a little-known art movement in the '60s -- little-known, even though Yoko Ono was an occasional and influential Fluxite. (John Lennon once quipped that everyone knew who Yoko was yet no one knew what she did.) But the movement arguably died out in the '70s -- although a Fort Worth artist, author and home-grown museum curator disagrees. As proof, he has assembled the current show, Fluxhibition #3, in the student gallery at the University of Texas at Arlington.
And then there's his living room.
Most art museum directors would have us believe that running an art museum is an all-consuming job. Yet Cecil Touchon runs two, three, maybe four -- out of his own living room.
TOUCHON: "We're standing in the living room of a three-bedroom, ranch-style house in Fort Worth, and the entire living room is wall-to-wall metal shelving housing boxes, plastic containers full of collages and arts supplies."
These are not just any overflowing shelves. Touchon is a successful artist with his boldly-colored collage works selling in New York and Santa Fe galleries. They've been featured in Interior Design magazine.
Official Fluxmuseum interior
But what's taking over his house are other people's artworks. For a decade, Touchon has been exchanging pieces through the mail with fellow artists. The resulting collections he's boxed up and crowded into his living room.
TOUCHON: "It's all part of the Ontological Museum of the International Post-Dogmatist Group. There's the FluxMuseum, the International Museum of Collage, Assemblage and Construction, and then Fluxus Laboratories is here. Oh, and FluxShop. Yeah - you know you've got a real Fluxus product when you have a FluxShop gold stamp on it like these. [laughs]"
If you want to read a book on Fluxus, I'd recommend Fluxus Codex, and there's even an irreverent cartoon history of the movement (A Flexible History of Fluxus Facts & Fictions) by a longtime Fluxite, Emmett Williams
