Object
AFTER PRINTED MATTER and performed events had proven furtive testing grounds for Fluxus activities, by the mid-1960s sculptural objects began to appear with greater frequency. The preferred materials are telling: wood, glass, plastic, and rubber. They are quotidian materials we associate strongly with everyday use, and, dutifully, Fluxus objects were meant to be touched. All were affordable, plentiful, and easily replicated. Ay-O’s Finger Box is precisely what it sounds like: a 7.5 x 7.5 x 7.5-inch square box with slits on two of its sides, inside of which an unspecified material blankets one’s fingers. Many Fluxus objects bear the mark of the group’s most significant precursor: Marcel Duchamp, creator of the “readymade.” The found object forms one of the core practices of Fluxus. If the found object dissolves the boundary between art and life, making the materials of everyday experience the stuff of artistic expression, then it also questions notions of ownership and artistic pedigree. Notably, a number of donated objects in the Fluxus Digital Collection lack full documentation; in some cases, no author, date, or year is specified. And since personal items sometimes accompany donated works, it is not always clear which objects are indeed artworks. The difficult situation this presents for archivists would not have been lost on Fluxus artists!