George Brecht
Water Yam
Artist
George Brecht
Original Title
Water Yam
Date1963
Mediumcarboard box with offset label, containing ninety three offset cards, 2 confetti, a brochure and an envelope with the assignment
Dimensionsbox: 24,3 × 22,5 × 4,5 cm
ClassificationsFlux Object
Credit LineKunsthalle Praha (Marie and Milan Knížák Fluxus Collection)
DescriptionGeorge Brecht was an American conceptual artist and avantgarde composer who simultaneously also worked as a professional chemist. He was a key figure of the Fluxus movement—he was involved in their first performances in Wiesbaden in 1962 and remained a member up until George Maciunas’s death in 1979. Brecht’s impact on the contemporary art world transcends Fluxus. His influence spans conceptual art, performance art, minimalism, and post-conceptualism, as well as experimental music. He laid the foundations for much of our modern-day understanding of performance art and conceptual art. Brecht’s own artistic trajectory was significantly influenced by his studies in composition under John Cage, which inspired him to explore the possibilities of incorporating time and space into the artwork. His early mature work is exemplified by the Chance Paintings (1957), which explored the role of chance in artistic practice. Their final form was not the result of the artist’s vision or style, but rather a byproduct of the creative process, through which Brecht intentionally subverted the role of the artist in relation to the artwork. The Case (1959) was first presented at Brecht’s inaugural solo exhibition, held at the Reuben Gallery in New York in 1959. The piece comprises a case full of playful objects. While the nature of the work drew inspiration from Duchamp’s readymades, its content seeks to involve the viewer in an organic, collective artistic event, thus anticipating the ideas that would later define Fluxus’s Fluxkits. In the early 1960s, Brecht invented and subsequently redefined the concept of “event scores”—cards with simple instructions inspired by everyday processes, which he distributed to his friends via mail, informing them that the actions can be performed publicly, privately, or not at all. On a practical level, mail art allowed Brecht to effectively disseminate his work; simultaneously, this process became part of the artwork itself. Brecht was among the artists who laid the foundations of the mail art movement, alongside Ray Johnson and On Kawara. The idea of mail art also provided the foundation for the year-long Yam Festival (1962–1963). The festival, which was attended by many avantgarde artists, sought to provide an alternative to the gallery system and produce art that could not be purchased. Artists participating in the event included Alison Knowles, Allan Kaprow, John Cage, Ay-O, Dick Higgins, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Ray Johnson. Like many of his colleagues from the Fluxus movement, Brecht held an interest in the use of alternative locations for art events, as well as in Eastern philosophies. In 1962, he and Robert Watts came up with the name “Yam”, which was meant to represent an overarching festival “for all types of non-material, experimental, not-yet-classified forms of expression”, which, crucially, cannot be purchased. The first events of this kind entailed sending event cards and other objects bearing the word “Yam”, or variations of it, to friends. The Yam Festival took place in 1963, at a farm in South Brunswick, New Jersey, but also included events hosted by artists such as Dick Higgins, Allan Kaprow, LaMonte Young, and Wolf Vostell. The festival was conceived as an extensive series of events held throughout the month, the main aim of which was to bypass traditional galleries and provide artists with an independent, non-commercial space. The Yam Festival developed in parallel to George Maciunas’s Fluxfests, which were underpinned by almost identical ideas. In 1964, Brecht became interested in books as a medium and began adhering to a stricter conceptual framework. Besides his experimental collaborations as part of Fluxus, he also exhibited in traditional gallery spaces during the 1960s and 1970s, exploring the concept of the readymade while simultaneously attempting to retain the functionality of objects.
Water Yam (1963) is an artist’s book in the form of a carton box containing many of Brecht’s event scores. The concept of Water Yam was invented by George Maciunas, and the box was meant to be part of a series of boxes containing the complete works of each Fluxus member. Water Yam was originally published in 1963 in Wiesbaden as a Fluxus edition. It is one of the iconic artworks published by Fluxus and is considered a forerunner of conceptual art. The box, sometimes referred to as a Fluxbox or a Fluxkit, contains numerous small, printed cards, known as event scores, containing instructions for various actions. These could be performed publicly, privately, or simply within one’s imagination. The works therefore left ample space for chance and free interpretation, thus challenging established artistic practices. The box itself was designed by Maciunas, and the typography was designed by Thomas Schmidt. In line with Maciunas’s principles, the boxes were not numbered nor signed, and originally sold for four dollars. The first edition of Water Yam comprised some 70 event scores, produced from 1959 to 1963. Many of these event scores were initially used in Brecht’s artistic practice between 1961 and 1963. Maciunas compiled them and gave them a unified visual style, although their size differs based on their content. The cards can be roughly divided into three segments: the earliest ones, dating from 1959 to 1962, describe the events that should take place (e.g. Solo for a violin, viola, violoncello, and contrabass • Polish language, July 1962); the second group, dating from 1962 to 1963, focuses on detailing the creation of temporary compositions (e.g. Chair Event • a grater, a yardstick, a flag, black and spectral colours, on a white chair • Thursday, March 1962); the final grouping, also from 1962 to 1963, is more abstract and distinctive (e.g. Thursday • Thursday, March 1963). In the first edition published, Maciunas chose to emphasize 14 music partitures (such as the famous Drip Music—a source of dripping water and an empty dish arranged in such a way that the water falls into the dish, January 1962) by printing them on orange cards, while the rest were printed on Brecht’s typical white cards. Later editions contained more cards as well as the booklet Nut Bone: A Yamfest Movie and black-and-white invitations to contact Brecht via his New York mailbox.
George Brecht (1926, New York – 2008, Cologne) studied chemistry at the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy & Science after World War II. Later, between 1958 and 1959, he studied experimental composition under John Cage at the New School for Social Research in New York—a course which was also attended by Brecht’s friend Allan Kaprow. His first solo exhibition, titled Towards Event: An Arrangement, took place in 1959 at the legendary Reuben Gallery in New York. It consisted of his constructed event pieces, which viewers could freely interact with. He also participated in important avantgarde exhibitions on the New York art scene of the early 1960s, such as the 1961 Environments, Situations, Spaces at the Martha Jackson Gallery. Brecht was a prominent member of Fluxus from its inception all the way through George Maciunas’s death in 1978. He also took part in Festum Fluxorum, an international festival presenting Fluxus’s newest music, held between 1962 and 1963, which featured pieces by artists such as John Cage, Raoul Hausmann, and Nam June Paik. Furthermore, Brecht also took part in publishing Fluxus’s editions and publications introducing the collective works of Fluxus members, such as the Fluxbox Fluxus 1 (1963). Moreover, he was a key figure in many Fluxus performance pieces. Brecht lived in New York until 1965, simultaneously making art and working in the pharmaceutical industry. He spent the following three years in southern France, where he and Robert Fillia ran a shop/art project La Cédille qui Sourit (The Cedilla that Smiles), which was only open by appointment. In 1968, Brecht moved to London, and subsequently to Germany in the following year, finally settling in Cologne in 1971. His two comprehensive retrospective exhibitions titled Events: A Heterospective took place between 2005 and 2006 at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne and at the MACBA in Barcelona. In 2006, he was awarded the prestigious Berliner Kunstpreis.
Water Yam (1963) is an artist’s book in the form of a carton box containing many of Brecht’s event scores. The concept of Water Yam was invented by George Maciunas, and the box was meant to be part of a series of boxes containing the complete works of each Fluxus member. Water Yam was originally published in 1963 in Wiesbaden as a Fluxus edition. It is one of the iconic artworks published by Fluxus and is considered a forerunner of conceptual art. The box, sometimes referred to as a Fluxbox or a Fluxkit, contains numerous small, printed cards, known as event scores, containing instructions for various actions. These could be performed publicly, privately, or simply within one’s imagination. The works therefore left ample space for chance and free interpretation, thus challenging established artistic practices. The box itself was designed by Maciunas, and the typography was designed by Thomas Schmidt. In line with Maciunas’s principles, the boxes were not numbered nor signed, and originally sold for four dollars. The first edition of Water Yam comprised some 70 event scores, produced from 1959 to 1963. Many of these event scores were initially used in Brecht’s artistic practice between 1961 and 1963. Maciunas compiled them and gave them a unified visual style, although their size differs based on their content. The cards can be roughly divided into three segments: the earliest ones, dating from 1959 to 1962, describe the events that should take place (e.g. Solo for a violin, viola, violoncello, and contrabass • Polish language, July 1962); the second group, dating from 1962 to 1963, focuses on detailing the creation of temporary compositions (e.g. Chair Event • a grater, a yardstick, a flag, black and spectral colours, on a white chair • Thursday, March 1962); the final grouping, also from 1962 to 1963, is more abstract and distinctive (e.g. Thursday • Thursday, March 1963). In the first edition published, Maciunas chose to emphasize 14 music partitures (such as the famous Drip Music—a source of dripping water and an empty dish arranged in such a way that the water falls into the dish, January 1962) by printing them on orange cards, while the rest were printed on Brecht’s typical white cards. Later editions contained more cards as well as the booklet Nut Bone: A Yamfest Movie and black-and-white invitations to contact Brecht via his New York mailbox.
George Brecht (1926, New York – 2008, Cologne) studied chemistry at the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy & Science after World War II. Later, between 1958 and 1959, he studied experimental composition under John Cage at the New School for Social Research in New York—a course which was also attended by Brecht’s friend Allan Kaprow. His first solo exhibition, titled Towards Event: An Arrangement, took place in 1959 at the legendary Reuben Gallery in New York. It consisted of his constructed event pieces, which viewers could freely interact with. He also participated in important avantgarde exhibitions on the New York art scene of the early 1960s, such as the 1961 Environments, Situations, Spaces at the Martha Jackson Gallery. Brecht was a prominent member of Fluxus from its inception all the way through George Maciunas’s death in 1978. He also took part in Festum Fluxorum, an international festival presenting Fluxus’s newest music, held between 1962 and 1963, which featured pieces by artists such as John Cage, Raoul Hausmann, and Nam June Paik. Furthermore, Brecht also took part in publishing Fluxus’s editions and publications introducing the collective works of Fluxus members, such as the Fluxbox Fluxus 1 (1963). Moreover, he was a key figure in many Fluxus performance pieces. Brecht lived in New York until 1965, simultaneously making art and working in the pharmaceutical industry. He spent the following three years in southern France, where he and Robert Fillia ran a shop/art project La Cédille qui Sourit (The Cedilla that Smiles), which was only open by appointment. In 1968, Brecht moved to London, and subsequently to Germany in the following year, finally settling in Cologne in 1971. His two comprehensive retrospective exhibitions titled Events: A Heterospective took place between 2005 and 2006 at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne and at the MACBA in Barcelona. In 2006, he was awarded the prestigious Berliner Kunstpreis.
Milan Knížák
1977-1981
