Who or what was Fluxus and what did they or it want? Andrew Graham-Dixon searches for clues at the Tate, without much success

There are those who have long suspected that, behind the blanket of obfuscation which shrouds that curious phenomenon known as ''Fluxus'', there lies a strange and deep-dyed plot. Fluxus is often referred to, in books about modern art, as one of the most seminal and radically experimental art movements of the 1960s. But the references are almost invariably made in passing and are usually cryptic and uninformative. Mystery surrounds the subject. Just who were the artists at the core of Fluxus? What was it that they stood for? What, exactly, did they produce?
 
Those researching Fluxus have very little solid material to go on. A man believed to be a member of the group, called George Brecht (this may have been a pseudonym), once defined the movement, unhelpfully, as ''a group of individuals with something unnameable in common''. A privately printed text of the late 1960s, purporting to be the manifesto of Fluxus, describes it as ''the fusion of Vaudeville, gags, children's games and Duchamp''. It is often assumed that Fluxus died in the 1970s. But it has also been rumoured that Fluxus still lives.
 
I have personal experience of the strange and elusive character of Fluxus. A few years ago one of the key events at the Venice Biennale was to be a Fluxus happening called ''Ubi Fluxus Ibi Motus''. The invitation card announced that ''During the all night will take place Fluxus performance on the island of the Giudecca''. A broken promise, written in broken English: I turned up during the all night, along with three other curious seekers after Fluxus, and spent a couple of hours on a deserted stretch of quayside...

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