Conceptual Art vs Fluxus
コンセプチュアル・アート / フルクサス
Conceptual Art comes from Postwar American Art and Fluxus from Avant-garde. Both are read here as style. They are reached for with some of the same intent, which is where they get confused.
Conceptual Art
.jpg)
Puts the idea at the center of the work and presents it through words, definitions, rules, documentation and placement, caring little for finish as an object.
Fluxus
Values the act and the participation above the finished piece, working in scores, boxes, cheap multiples, performances and events until the border between art and daily life gives way.
| Conceptual Art | Fluxus | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | mid-1960s–1970s | early 1960s–late 1970s |
| Family | Postwar American Art | Avant-garde |
| Kind | Style | Style |
| Cues | Words and definitions / Instructions and rules / Documentary photographs / Dematerialization | Event scores / Boxes and multiples / Everyday actions / Anti-art humor |
| Best used for | Exhibitions or research presentations that show procedure and definition instead of a finished object · Participatory projects where published rules let other people carry out the work | Works and programs written as instructions that exist only when someone performs them. · Cheap multiples boxed and circulated hand to hand as small scale publishing. |
| Type | Plain office grade type presenting the definition exactly as written | Write each instruction as one imperative line and print it still open to reading. |
| Composition | Set work beside statement and order everything by the record, not by drama | One item per card, with the order of the deck left unfixed. |
| Material | Cheap carriers such as photostats, typescript, index cards and wall writing | Found objects, paper, wooden boxes, cheap printing, no signature or scarcity. |
| Caution | Styling the surface to look administrative without a rule or question anyone can test leaves only curt graphic design. Change what counts as the work, including structure, site and the relation to the audience. | Imitating random instructions and plain boxes settles nothing about ownership, authority and the audience's role, and a score framed on the wall without ever being performed loses the premise of action and participation. |